IS Virus: Episode 2-4 - Replication
by tonbonkittybon
Summary: They were all played. They won't admit it, but they were all played. The renegade, Phantom Task, the UN Canada division, the parties that hosted Canada's Next Top Gun...fools. All of them. And they don't even know it. And only Cecilia knows why. The mistakes that scarred her will resurface, in a slap to her and her friends' face. And they are watching the reenactment unfold.
1. I Still Don't Know

_IS Virus: Episode 2-4 - Replication_

 _Part 1: I Still Don't Know_

 **-ÎLE SAINTE-HÉLÈNE, QUÉBEC PROVINCE-**

The search for Canada's Next Top Gun was over. Three promising young women have been chosen to represent Canada at IS Academy. The crew was dismantling the stage. The scientists were compiling so much data. The tearful reunions were moving back to their respective homes. Everything was winding down.

And yet, the night was not over. For Sokoto and Cecilia, the only way to get over the whirlwind of life changing events was to go somewhere quiet to walk it off.

So, what better way than to awkwardly walk down an incomplete demo of Disneyworld Canada? Under the shimmer of the moon...and stars... and they got the greenery and the plant life done, and some lampposts and decorations, but not the attractions...I'm sorry, what was that about the allure of women?

"So, you call yourself Sokoto?" Cecilia said, "Quite an odd choice for a small Tasmanian devil."

"Would a wild dog be able to do-THIS!" Sokoto kick flipped off a lamppost, acquiring a sunflower in the process, onto a trash can and did a 1080 corkscrew off and landed right behind her in a ninja gentleman pose. He held the flower for her to take. And she would have taken it, if they didn't realize what just happened. They withdrew their limbs and stared blankly at the ground.

"That's, uh...how did you learn to do that..." Cecilia stammered. If she was supposed to walk down memory lane, then this would be a stark detour.

"I, uh...I was picked up by the yakuza when I was three..." Sokoto said, "I guess I was picked up by a family that loved doing gun-fu while parkouring..." They kept walking.

"Oh...well, you've gotten quite good at it."

"I didn't have anything else to do, so..."

"Well, I play tennis and dance with a passion. Never did that in public, but..."

"Why not?"

"I've always thought it unbecoming to flash your body in public."

"What, like in movies? That's just poppycock."

"I don't know what I think of it now, though."

"Well..." he looked, and quickly turned away, "...yeah...you're a natural now..."

"Hm?" Cecilia looked at him. He was blushing. She was surprised. He called her a cootie woman this whole time. Was that a facade? Did he really see her as a woman? She looked at her-oh. She still has the Mega Milk on. "You want to sit for a bit?" She found a bench and sat, leaning her back against the seat and putting her hands behind her back. She looked at him with longing eyes and relaxed lips.

"Um..." and there's the view that will haunt his dreams for years to come. And he got a read on her aura. She wanted to throw everything out the window too. "Yep, I'm incurable..." he slowly walked over and settled himself on her lap. She wrapped her arms around his neck and settled her hands on his shoulders. She leaned her head against his.

None of them could contain their embarrassment. It was dead silence with the occasional soft wordplay. No movement of any kind from either one.

"Any of this seem weird to you?" He asked.

"All of it..." she answered, "but I don't want to think about that right now..."

"Why not?"

"I don't know...I just want to be in the now..."

But he knew. He read her aura as confusion and sorrow, with a hint of ecstasy. He took it as, everything she was told about the world was wrong. The folk tales, the wisdom, the warnings, the ideals, just everything was wrong. Her own little world has been forcibly shattered. And yet, here they were. Quote-unquote "sworn enemies" trying to offer what little comfort they can give.

"Autumn tell you I'm trying to find a new meaning for Phantom Task?..."

"She did..."

"You, uh...wanna come with us to help find a meaning?..."

"What?"

"I mean...Autumn said you can't go home anymore...if you want, you can come with us..."

And Cecilia's back on the road. Sort of. During her last year in the Academy, two months after the raid, she worked her tail off at the Third Mondo Grosso to regain their trust and dispel the rumors. At the end of year trip to DisneySea, after three hours of merriment and memories, the girls drew lots to see in what order they would go to allure Ichika and claim his heart. Unsurprisingly(?), Cecilia went first, and Houki got last. She found a way to isolate her and Ichika. She had him all to herself. Atop the ferriswheel, she pulled out all the stops to attract him. After they descended, they went to a bench exactly like this, and she held his hand and confessed her love.

Guess what happened?

"You're very beautiful, probably the most beautiful woman I've ever had the pleasure of befriending," he said, "but I've already decided...and I'm sorry. It's not you."

She was utterly heartbroken. To her, Ichika was the only man in the world who fit her qualifications for marriage. And the only person who was strong enough to fill the hole in her heart that her parents' sudden death left. And he rejected her.

Here, the situation was reversed. Sokoto was the one asking for her hand. And it wasn't for love; it was for a place in a family. And-And! While Cecilia obsessed with the fact that Ichika was able to shatter the world's expectations, hinting towards a sort of superficial attraction, Sokoto and Cecilia never touched the fact that Sokoto was the second male IS pilot. That's how strong their connection was.

"I'm sorry..." and just like Ichika rejected her, she rejected Sokoto, "It's just too sudden right now. Maybe after a few months, when I can sort out everything in my head... I just need time to think, that's all..."

"Figured..." unlike her, he handled it well, "I had headaches since I got here..." he scratched his head and got off once he sensed Autumn's arrival. He kept his back to her, on account of the MM on her bosom, "Well, the offer still stands until I head for England...that'll give you more than enough time, right?..."

And with that, he left her for Autumn. Strangely enough, Cecilia was not offended. She at least knew that the renegade recognized her as someone of the opposite sex. As evidenced by the-

Autumn: "So, how was it?"

Sokoto: "Like two pillows gently massaging-"

-branch smack-

Autumn: "I DIDN'T MEAN THE BREASTESES!"

Silvia: "Cecilia used Charm on Sokoto! Sokoto's paralyzed! AAHAHAHAHAHAA!"

Sokoto: "Oh, piss off, dinkle fairy!"

Cecilia laughed. The school girls got onto Ichika too, albeit for different reasons.

"Quite the show you put on," Rachel suddenly appeared.

All of a sudden, Cecilia got snarky, "Well, if you think you can do better than me, he's over there," pointing to the renegade.

"Well, don't mind if I do," Rachel flashed her twin tails and walked towards the renegade's party.

Without paying any attention to Cecilia's ghastly expression. Because that little exchange was verbatim from her conversation with Lingyin right after she got rejected. Lingyin went straight to Ichika as soon as he recovered from the pounding he got from his classmates and provoked him into an attraction.

Just like Sokoto got hounded for falling for Cecilia, and just like Rachel brazenly impeded on his humiliation punishment.

"Sounds like you're having quite the party," Rachel said.

"They are, I'm not..." Sokoto squeezed out of a noogie.

"Hey," Autumn noticed, "We were just talking about the renegade's favorite bra size."

"GET OUTTA HERE!" Sokoto pushed her off. Silvia fizzled to Rachel's shoulder and gave her a copy of her data, along with a very provocative photo of Sokoto and Cecilia looking into each other's eyes.

"A gift," Silvia winked before fizzling to Autumn's shoulder and avoiding Sokoto's raging hissy fits.

"What was that?" Rachel asked.

"That is my IS."

"What?!"

"Yeah...it came alive."

"Oh, this I gotta here," Rachel said as she took him by the hand and walked with him, "Wait, why are you letting me take you away?"

"Just breaking the pace," he said, "plus I know your women are itching to get a piece of me, some of them in the weirdest sense possible."

"Yeah, I don't get them..."

Cecilia just stared horrified by the sight of them, because it triggered her sudden revelation. Someone deliberately set this up. Someone told everyone where she was and what she would be doing, and gave everyone a role to play. Why? To mess with her head? Doubt it; it's easy to mess with her without throwing up the past. Only someone who knows her extremely well could replicate her memories. But who? Lingyin's in China, Charlotte's in parts unknown, screw Chifuyu, screw Ichika, screw Houki, she didn't really mean all that, Kanzashi went to Australia, Laura's in Germany-

...oh, crap.

"Tatenashi..." Cecilia opened her radar and found the signal of the Mysterious Lady nearby, and jumped and ran off to find her.

Out of all the people Cecilia has known, Tatenashi is the craftiest. She was the most playful, teasing nearly everyone who associated with her, relentlessly toying with Ichika, even making quirky one liners in the head of battle. All a nice little distraction from her exceptional combat abilities, family prestige, and damn near scary good cunning and versatility. She boasted of holding the title of Student Council President as her 14th accomplishment. She was leading the final attack on Phantom Task after the Third Mondo Grosso! No one else could have been able to manipulate circumstances and situations like she could, and she did that to the harem on the daily! No way anyone else could have set this whole prototype up while attracting the renegade to Canada, spiking the interest of all pursuing parties, all the while carrying out some secret mission within the secret mission while simultaneously performing a secret mission that led to another secret mission...ON TOP OF THIS SECRET MISSION! No doubts now, this was definitely her handiwork.

She ran while keeping a close eye on the renegade, who incidentally worked with Rachel to trigger the next flashback. Only while here Sokoto gave Rachel a free big one, back then Lingyin got rejected as well and tried to pummel Ichika, but he's been around her long enough to anticipate that so he managed to purposefully lose his mind and use the Barrier Void Attack on her. In both instances, however, it was done when no one saw crap.

Cecilia shook her head and ran for the location of the ML. It was a large castle breezeway. She stopped everything and gasped when she saw what was under.

Five male bodies, limp, unmoved. Just like before, she was the first to witness the coming of Phantom Task, but did nothing because she was the also the first to have her heart shattered. What's her excuse now? She took a closer look at the bodies to find one.

She heard one of them exhale, "so...fine..."

"Eek!" She jumped, "Uh...not dead...ok...but why..."

"It wasn't a blood anything."

Cecilia was startled. She turned around. A voluptuous figure dropped down from the castle and stood her up. The figure rubbed her bottom, "My ass is just that powerful."

Cecilia recognized that voice, "Ok, out with it, Tatenashi. You said you had an errand to run. Was this it?"

"A happy little accident I happened upon," Tatenashi answered, "Couldn't resist spilling the beans to moth woman."

"What?! How did you-"

"The volcano? Remember?"

The volcano. Mt Fuji. Eruption. Phantom Task needed to get out, but where would be the best place to start? In the lava shelter, they waited. Autumn somehow got an encrypted message:

FWD from TataS - re: Vacation?

"Wanna get away? Try Alaska! Bring the renegade, and you'll get unbelievable discounts on literally everything! Don't delay!"

Kan-chan

Cecilia was out of rat's feet to give. She was right. "Ok, I'll bite," she was visibly shaken, "Why?"

Tatenashi walked forward and unfurled her fan, which bore the word **truth** , "You're treading down a dangerous path, one you stared when you abandoned the pursuit in Japan, right when Ichika needed you the most."

"He doesn't need me!" Cecilia snapped back, "Clearly he has it made, being an instructor at the Academy AND a dojo!"

"Ah, but that was before the renegade," Tatenashi rubbed the fan on Cecilia's shoulder, then swerved to the neck while moving the stupefied men with her feet, "Back then, you were secure. Now, the circumstances have changed."

"How?"

"Ichika declared me excommunicado."

"Did what?!"

"Oh? Did he not tell you?" Tatenashi moved to Cecilia's other shoulder, "Well, if he did tell you, I wouldn't be excommunicated, would I?"

"What are you trying to say?..."

"And with the way you turned tail and ran, with Chifuyu's counsel," Tatenashi walked in the moonlight, then turned an eye to Cecilia, "it's only a matter of time before he does it to everyone else." The fan changed, showing the word **test** , "and he'll start with you."

"Don't you put that on me..."

"The girl who turned tail and ran when things got too heated."

"You...I thought you were a friend..."

"So did a lot of people," Tatenashi wafted her fan, "So...what now? You gonna derail everything I've set up? You gonna play along and relive your most damaging moment? Or are you going to team up with one side and totally butt rape the other?"

"You won't get me to do anything," Cecilia seethed, "You just told me everything. I'll tell everyone what you did."

"Oh, you don't have to," Tatenashi pointed to the right.

Hidden within the bushes, the trees, and posing as normal people who wandered into the prototype...were SWAT, BritSpecOps, and UN members, separated into cells of four. Each had the task of giving the renegade and Phantom Task a false sense of security, until the appointed time when the ambush would catch them in one swoop. The leaders of each cell live streamed the sting to the nations of their respective origins. Essentially, the whole world would get to see how the renegade really acted. Including Australia, Germany, Japan, China, England, and of course Canada. The signal to begin closing in on the renegade and Phantom Task would be given via a black box signal remote.

And Tatenashi held it for Cecilia to see.

"No..." Cecilia was blank.

"They'll know it's me either way," Tatenashi said a little too smugly, "but the world won't. Out of all the data contained in that exabyte of juicy gossip I nabbed, I found a couple terabytes far too extreme for anyone's eyes. Consider this my security deposit."

Cecilia was about to throw down, until she saw the renegade finish a bout with a UN agent, who promised him a much better show in a few minutes. That translated to Laura getting rejected and holding Ichika down with the AIC and her railgun, and Ichika daring her to do it. Thanks to her "knowledgeable" comrade, Laura was forced to let him go, but she had in mind who he chose, and gathered the girls who got rejected for a revenge scheme.

Wait. Cecilia, Lingyin, Laura-the renegade's already halfway done!

"Step out now," Tatenashi said, "and you'll be the one they pin."

"You can't just expect me to play along with your schemes!" Cecilia darted off.

Tatenashi shook her head and put the unconscious men on a grassy clearing, confused as to how Cecilia actually fell for her greatest enemy, "Well, all that hate has to go somewhere-OUCH!" Dropped, "Ow...ow...stinger...stinger...stinger..."

Cecilia ran in the opposite direction to prepare countermeasures. She knew Kanzashi would be next, and her reaction was similar to Cecilia's, so she had time to prepare.

Or not, because Tatenashi had countermeasures of her own, "Неизвестный пилот бежит к отступнику. Она нарушит операцию. Остановите ее." (Unknown pilot running towards the renegade. She will disrupt the operation. Stop her.)

Cecilia made it to a sidewalk intersection, "Ok, this should be far enough...Star light, star bri-MMMMFMFMMMFFF-" Someone grabbed her.

"You again."

"MMM?!"

"Remember me from the island?" He said, "when the renegade betrayed us and let you out?" He pulled a knife, "Not this time."

She elbowed him, stomped his foot, and stole his knife. Then she slashed him away, only to be tackled by another. They fell, but he got the shank. She got him off and kept running.

"Where do you think you're going?" Rachel suddenly stopped her.

"I don't have time for this!" Cecilia said, "Out of my way." She walked ahead, but Rachel grabbed her shoulder.

"You already did your part," Rachel tightened her grip, "We don't need you anymore."

"What, you don't need to know we're all being played?"

"Our informant told us that he, and multiple other parties, would be here. We've prepared for everything, including what you just said."

Cecilia took another glance at Rachel, "Where is he now?"

"Southern end," Rachel snapped her fingers, "though not the same as where you'll be headed."

Suddenly, Cecilia found herself surrounded by four women. She pulled out the knife and engaged all of them, keeping them at bay while delivering a couple knicks to Rachel's side. When an opening was created, she made her escape.

"Dammit..." Rachel cursed as she and her squad slowly brushed off the impact.

"Was this really necessary?" Her subordinate asked.

"Not really..." Rachel bandaged herself, "but something about her worry face just distracted me..."

Cecilia looked everywhere for the renegade, and found him by the river, getting a warning from a SWAT member of what's to come.

But she had a ponytail. Did he already finish with Kanzashi? Yes he did, because she never saw how Kanzashi got the boot, but saw she understood why and decided to let it go. But this brought up the moment after Charlotte got rejected and Cecilia offered her a chance to take her revenge. Kanzashi declined because her efforts were focused on the shadow soldiers, the remains of the old Phantom Task, she saw sneak past the harem. Charlotte? She wanted first hit on the next woman.

Cecilia knew who that next woman was. The dream girl, the childhood friend, the only person who gave up on disciplining Ichika because she knew he would learn sooner or later. The one they used as an excuse to create a giant rift post graduation.

"I have to take him out before that happens," Cecilia said. But she took two steps before feeling a cold shoulder.

"Take who out?" The voice said coldly.

"The renegade... and it has to be done now..." Cecilia dare not move, lest she be the next target.

"Don't dirty your hands like that," the woman walked forward and revealed herself, "Let me do it for you."

"Forte Sapphire?!" Cecilia stepped back.

Forte just smiled and walked towards the renegade.

Cecilia froze until Forte was gone. She slumped and sighed, "Whew...ok...that'll take care of him...hopefully..." She didn't notice Tatenashi hidden in the leaves of a nearby tree.

"Why didn't you tell me Forte would be here?!" Her agent radioed.

"I didn't know!" She answered back.

"Ugh...Well, at least we can proceed as planned."

"Understood..." Tatenashi hung up and smiled, "Sorry, Cece...but you and the others will face their fate, one way or another."

Sokoto was walking down a walkway, getting excited over the auras he seemingly couldn't escape. That SWAT agent was right. Everyone in the prototype was getting ready for a big assault, and given his wanted status, he couldn't ask for a better night. He was geeking out over how much metal he was going to punch when he sensed a cold aura somewhere, "Brrr...I know it gets chilly, but not this chilly...just like that girl-HUZAT!"

He equated the sensation to Forte's entrance and threw his right arm behind her.

"Not this time, renegade," Forte jabbed his pressure points and threw him against a fountain. He slumped over while she rubbed herself on him, "Bet'cha didn't think I'd let this go, did ya? Not after you made your choice."

"Are you still on about that?" Sokoto groaned, "They forgave each other! It's time you forgave her!"

Forte grabbed his neck, "That ain't happening. Why should you stick a family you just met when my family was torn apart by her deeds after a decade?"

"Dec-huh?" Sokoto joked, "Oh my god-EWW TOO OLD GET AWAY!"

All of a sudden, she was punched with a very fast hook to her chin. She winced in pain as he made his escape.

"YOU HAVE PROBLEMS, OLD HAG!" Sokoto screamed, "AUTUMN WILL KNOW ABOUT THIS!"

Tatenashi watched using her IS zoom in, cringing, "Well...at least it was abridged..." She remembered how she tackled Ichika numerous times on his way to Houki. She pressed him to call it off and just stay friends, offering her body as a reward. She was playing around with him and wanted to get in on the action. He pushed her off three times. When she pounced on him the fourth time, he let himself fall, but he made it look innocent, positioning his elbow to trap her head the moment they hit the ground. To many, it looked like an honest mistake. But deep inside, he got really angry. After the Valentines conundrum, he thought that everything was ok after the Mondo Grosso attack. But it just made it worse.

"Ok...enough reminiscing on my part..." Tatenashi refortified herself, "Time to roll." She smashed her remote. Everyone except Autumn, Cecilia, and Sokoto got the signal to move in.

Autumn and Silvia were staring up at the moon, tracing its reflection to the gently glowing river below them, after a hearty conversation about whatever they thought of. They were hitting it off when they saw Sokoto limping over under the gate, and through the grass.

"Uh...do I need to ask?" But Autumn just did.

"Forte..." Sokoto limped over, "She's still crazy...she poked me...made me go limp..." he grabbed Autumn's shoulders, "GOD HELP THE POOR BASTARD CAUGHT IN HER ICY COLD GRIP!"

"Like you were?"

"YEEEES! WHY DO YOU THINK I WOBBLED ALL THE WAY OUT HERE FOR?!" And he collapsed.

"Hehehehaahaaa!" Silvia fizzled to his shoulder, "Pre-battle jitters? Or maybe Forte got one off of ya!"

"The hell you talking about, woman?" Sokoto demanded.

"Hey," Autumn said, and made both of them look up, "What do you think about me?"

Sokoto and Silvia looked at each other. He stood up once he got his feeling back, "Well..."

"Hang on a second," Silvia deployed her wings and moved him to a spot where, just under the right amount of light, "Ok! Done!"

"What was that fooooorrrrrrrrrrr..." Sokoto blushed. If Autumn hadn't emptied out her psycho anger on the island... "Uhhhh...you...I just-"

"It's ok," Autumn chuckled, "I feel the same way about you..."

"I-it-really?"

"Yeah," Autumn hugged him, "The you you and the Squall you."

"You settled everything, didn't you?" He hugged back.

"Yeah, thanks to Silvia..."

Happy to help, onee-sama!" Silvia did the cutesy pose.

"She led on," Autumn ignored her, "and we talked about how you had Squall inside you, and how I had to embrace the both of you..."

"Heheh...I'll do my best. Though, I can't get any taller than..."

"I know. It doesn't matter..."

Silvia fizzled to a lamppost and sat on the grass, "I tell ya, including Madoka, you guys are the weirdest family I've ever seen."

Cecilia was too late. She saw Forte get downed and rushed to the scene herself, only to hide herself in a bush and witness the very scene that drove everyone bonkers.

The same walkway illuminated by occasional lamps. The same approach to that inevitable meeting. When Ichika confessed his love for Houki and asked her to start everything as his girlfriend. She said yes. They embraced. Little did they know that trouble was afoot. The leftovers from Phantom Task sought to get revenge against the people who ruined everything, only to have their presence rendered pointless by the girls' own revenge plot.

And the first person to fire was, of course, Lingyin. She hit Houki in the head, already damaging her shield, while everyone else scrambled for a piece of Ichika's skeleton.

Cecilia saw the groupie walking towards the renegade. She also saw someone with a rocket launcher aimed at him. She had to disrupt her flashbacks somehow. But when they loaded the rocket, there was no more time left. She would not go through that phase again.

Once Autumn and Sokoto finished their moment together, they returned to reality.

"Hey, by the way," Autumn asked, "Isn't it a little too quite here?"

"Yeah, there's a bunch of people behind us," Sokoto whispered, "but...y'know...keep it cool."

"Gotcha," Autumn winked before she walked off, readied her IS, and pretended to act, "I sure would like some Canadian bacon right about now!"

"Even though it's just ham?" Sokoto played along.

"Oh my god, really?" Silvia fizzled to the rocket launcher and ambushed the ambush group, "HURRY UP AND START THE FIGHT ALREADY!" She smacked the trigger, firing the rocket towards Autumn.

But it was Cecilia who took the hit. She deployed the Mermaid's Tears and flung herself in the rocket's path. She broke the tree by the riverbank and splashed.

"Was that supposed to happen?" Sokoto asked.

"Nope," Autumn deployed her Shinomure and leaped into the sky, raining wind blades down at the rocket.

"WHAT?!" Rachel yelled as she deployed her unit and charged towards Sokoto.

"Well, better early than late!" He unleashed the Streamline and met Forte's and Rachel's punches with his.

"So...that's your answer..." Tatenashi leaned back against the bark, watching the chaos unfold.


	2. Time to Get Real

_Part 2: Time to Get Real_

 **-IS ACADEMY, OFFSHORE JAPAN-**

Afternoon lunch at the Academy. Everyone was getting their usual meals, sitting with their usual cliques, and heckling the engaged couple as usual. However, the faculty decided to extend lunch by a whole hour. Unusual. Why?

NHK Afternoon: "We are receiving a live broadcast feed via UN team in Montreal, Québec, where the renegade has been lured into a trap set up by a collaborative effort between Canadian authorities, British Specialists, and UN agents. We are told that a rocket was fired by a British agent, but it was blocked by Cecilia Alcott, former IS Representative of the U.K. You can see the chaos unfolding on the Canadian DisneySea debut programme after an intense effort to lure the renegade has paid off, and yet no one has been able to subdue him-"

That's right. The trap was live streamed too. And while everyone else was freaking out over it, Houki saw exactly what made Ichika lose his sanity back then. Ichika himself sat silent, as he watched on while in his mind preparing an explanation for all this.

 **-TIANANMEN SQUARE, BEIJING MUNICIPALITY-**

It was chaos at the Square. The state media showed the entire saga as well, via Mao Zedong statue projector, leading to screaming questions as to why the UN didn't assault the renegade in the first place.

"Can you believe these people?" The vice-president said, "Freaking out over the simplest of meanderings..."

"I thought they would be over this by now..." Lingyin scratched her head, "We are assembling the Class 4 squad, are we not?"

"Still in the approval stage, your Excellency."

"Well, that's good then," Lingyin relaxed, "Keep a couple units over here. First sign of violence, suppress them."

"Understood," the Vice President walked away while Lingyin herself stared at the screen.

She was very relieved to have been nominated for President, because that toppled her world as well, and she realized she had to make amends with all loose ends right away. After graduation, while most tried to squeeze their apologies to Ichika, she went straight to Houki and let her know, "I don't know of any apology of mine in the world that's worth forgiveness...but just know, I truly am sorry for what I did." She didn't even bother with him.

A year later, after no word back or forth, she got a voice mail from Houki, "Hey. Heard you got the job. Really proud of you. Listen. About that thing you did...we already forgave you. And, well, we were hoping to stop by for your world famous sweet-n-sour special. The dish that won China's most prestigious cooking competition. Let me know when you want us to come...if...you want us to come, or you can come to us. Either way..." Classic tsundere.

Lingyin used that experience to rocket to record-high approval ratings. Keeping the needs of all people while winning them over to her interests and maintaining her playful seriousness, she found a new respect for the roughness she endured to get to where she was now.

And as Lingyin watched over the crowd losing their cool over the intensely action-packed fight, "Heh...I wonder if anyone else caught on..."

 **-BRANDENBURG GATE, BERLIN-BRANDENBURG METROPOLITAN REGION-**

Oh, they did, especially Laura, who, without the support of her comrades, endured the mental torture on her own. Seeing the renegade interact with the SWAT agent somehow reminded her of the time she tried to seduce Ichika, and failed with little effort. She resorted to violence to persuade him, "You are my bride! I will have no objections! Now, honor your commitment, or I will retract my generosity of sparing your life!"

"Do it," Ichika said while he was held down by the AIC, "Do it then. If I'm dead, no one can claim me like a rusty trophy."

"Ggg..." she's been had. She remembered walking away, then stumbling onto Lingyin and Cecilia, who also got rejected. And she was the one who propositioned the revenge ploy in the first place.

And she never thought to make amends. Ichika and Houki may have simmered down, but Laura didn't, at least not inside. Even when she was called to Japan after the Academy was destroyed, she held everything back, until that fated...completely out of character party atop the Big Apple, where it was made clear to her twice, painfully, that he would not be her bride.

She contacted her fellow colleagues in Luxembourg, "How goes it?"

"It's done," someone responded, "the Class 4 proposal is now heading to the UNHQ."

"Good," she hung up before letting the raw anger leak from her eyes, "Well played, renegade...well played..."

And she rode her motorcycle away from the enormous crowd.

 **-SYDNER OPERA HOUSE, NEW SOUTH WALES-**

Kanzashi just left a satisfying opera show when she got word of a live stream of a renegade battle during intermission. She sat out the rest of the show and watched as the saga unfolded. And brought back some painful memories.

After seeing Charlotte pull out all the stops onlynto embarras herself on the highest level possible, it was her turn to try and win Ichika over, but she was the one with obstacles: his irritation level when she walked behind him, and the shadow agent ninjas she saw while tailing him. She tapped his shoulder and asked him what bothered him. The thirty minutes she spent talking with him not only opened her up to a softer, love starved side of him, it also distracted him long enough to repel the agents somewhere else. In the end, she realized they weren't a good match, so she accepted her defeat and wished him luck with Houki. When he left, she texted her sister,

"U c them 2, don't u?"

"I saw them when we got here. I wanna distract him! Pleeeeeeease?"

"I'll warn the others."

A lot of good that did. The girls were too wrapped up in revenge to listen to her, and Ichika ended up on bad terms with Tatenashi. She left it up to chance to stop the ninjas from killing him. Thankfully, no casualties.

Seeing the battle go hog wild left her thinking about her time with the renegade, and wondering how Tatenashi's time with him went.

"Miss you sis. Meet up?"

 **-NIAGRA FALLS, NEW YORK-**

Chifuyu was on edge. Witnessing the carnage being wrought upon the prototype brought out the pain of forcing herself to sit this out.

She had hoped that the debacle of the Phantom Task assault would strengthen their bonds enough to withstand the inevitable. But as she was scheduling the class end of year trip, she heard rumors of Ichika choosing his girlfriend. She told everyone to shut the hell up, but her scary dominance didn't stretch beyond the classroom. Within the dorms, those with personal ISs were fighting over who would be the lucky girl. So she went over their, and made them prick their pinkies and interlock them,

"You have to promise me that you won't go at each others' throats after the trip is over."

"Yes, ma'am."

Joke, "Otherwise, bad things will happen to you."

"*GULP*"

"Those girls never listen," Chifuyu said as she looked up at the moon, and the destruction happening underneath, "I never thought they'd be stupid enough to turn that joke into an actual curse..."

She couldn't help but think that this was an exposé on the IS. Like if the girls had even bothered to try to remember that Red Pinky promise, would the renegade be the renegade? Maybe he would've been that one student who rocks the battlefield, but falls asleep in class, a tiny thorn in her butt at most, but probably an absolute nightmare to Ichika. Well, either way, she walked off the international bridge and began preparing her attack,

"Clarissa? It's me. The renegade will enter the US in five weeks. We have to alert the President."

 **-ÎLE SAINTE-HÉLÈNE, QUÉBEC PROVINCE-**

Cecilia floated to the tree and shook off the recoil. She momentarily lost track of her own presence when she heard an unusually powerful blast from above. She looked up.

"I'MMA FIRIN' MAH LAZAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA~" Sokoto fired a moon-powered Gallic Gun against Forte's Freeze Lancer. The sheer size of the Gun was more than enough to overpower Forte, but thanks to Tabane's antics, the amount of energy funneled into the laser turned it into a semi Barrier Void Attack. When the clash ended, Forte had just a third of her shield remaining.

"Woohoo! Damn, lookadah!" Sokoto commented on the crater he left behind.

"On your left!" Silvia retracted the Streamline and made him fall below Rachel's shot. She redeployed it before he touched the water.

He momentarily locked eyes with Cecilia, "'ello, love-GABLAGH!" before Forte rammed him into the river.

Rachel turned her focus to the one person who ruined her one good shot. "ALCOTT!" She rapid fired her gun. Cecilia quickly dodged and sent her drones after her.

"Not you again!" Rachel danced with the drones for a bit, managing to shoot one down before running into Cecilia's rifle. She was stabbed, then shot. Cecilia moved in.

Meanwhile, both Autumn and Tatenashi were on the move. Autumn dug deep within to reignite her inner psycho and toy with every person who tried to fight her, while Tatenashi hid herself in the shadows picking on her pursuers one by one. They eventually met under the giant breezeway.

"You know," Autumn threw the agent she dragged to her death out of the "arena", "I never quite got you back for that nanowater stunt during the Cannonball Fast..."

"Well, keep dreaming," Tatenashi deployed the Mysterious Lady and kicked her dead pursuers out, "You're a long way from my league."

They stared each other down for a few seconds before Tatenashi made the first move. She thrust her lance forward. Autumn dodged and yanked the lance forward and threw Tatenashi off balance. She then landed three solid punches on Tatenashi's face. She tried to get in a jump spin kick, but Tatenashi blocked it and used the force to swing her lance around and into Autumn's side. Autumn recoiled and shot out energy blades from her wings. All that did was push Tatenashi back, giving her enough room to fire a stream of bullets. Autumn moved around the breezeway looking for an opening while avoiding the endless bullet fire. She found one in the neck and charged forward, blowing energy shots nonstop. Instead, she crashed into a water shield.

"Did you forget?" Tatenashi taunted, "My IS is a nanowater bender." She backed away and exploded the shield, damaging Autumn's barrier.

While that was going on, Sokoto and Forte took their fight to the open waters, amazing every single spectator with a fireworks show with every attack they threw at each other while speeding down the river. But despite that giant laser from earlier, Sokoto cannot get a good hit in.

"What's wrong?!" Forte screamed, "Got nothing left in that limp IS of yours?!" She slashed him away with her halberd.

"Ugh..." Sokoto gritted, "Anything we can use right now?"

"We can use blast attacks to stall her before the tank's full," Silvia said.

"How long will that take?"

"A few minutes."

"HEY!" Forte launched her Freeze Lancer, "Pay attention!"

"That's time we don't have!" Sokoto fired a rapid barrage of energy balls from his palms. It was enough to keep the crystals away from him, but Forte anticipated that and rushed forward next to the energy streams. She thrust his side and plummeted downward. He grabbed on and started to blast her off, pelting her with balls just before they hit the water. They fought for control of the halberd, but when she closed in, he let go and IB flip kicked her, and sent her rocketing out of the river high into the sky. He popped out and charged an energy fist. She saw him come and swung her halberd downward. He was forced to send his fist towards the blade. They both crashed and caused a giant multi-firework over the entire metropolitan area.

Cecilia kept the heat going on Rachel. She thought the Mermaid's Tears would be inferior to the Maid of Horror, but thanks to her IS collecting and incorporating so much personal data, her upgrades were made permanent, which meant the 2nd Shift is now her default battle setting. And she lavished it to its fullest, switching from CQC to long range on the fly. She constantly flew in Rachel's frag streams to distract her, then snuck her drone in and shot Rachel from behind, right before either clocking her in the chin, or blasting her in the head. Either way, she managed to get under Rachel's skin.

"How did you get so good?!" Rachel said, "This wasn't in the data at all!"

"No," Cecilia took aim, "it went in hours ago." She fired on Rachel, who dodged and shot down the last drone. Cecilia capitalized on the opening and fired a fully charged laser, but Rachel activated her Reflective Barrier at the last minute, sending the shot back to Cecilia.

"Ugh! Ow..." Cecilia winced, "Figures. That suits you so well."

"You coward!" Rachel screamed.

"Me? Really?" Cecilia went snarky again.

"We are at war with this animal! You think you're better than them?!"

"I don't know. I stopped being better than them when I was excommunicated, remember?"

"Just a ruse to get you motivated to bringing him down! Yes, I don't like you, but I absolutely LOATHE him. He's trampled on your pride more times than he should ever have the right to! Don't you want payback?!"

Cecilia took a look at the renegade. He managed to tire Forte out, just like how Ichika somehow outlasted Laura and Lingyin throughout the rapids lazy rivers, long enough to disable the AIC and the Ryuhou. She then turned to Autumn, barely holding her own against Tatenashi, just like how she and Houki duked it out under the grand castle.

"You know," she finally said, "I've thought about how much I would love to wrangle that fleabag's neck through the gutter. How I thought he was the reason for my utterly chaotic descent. And dear god, was I wrong." She flipped her rifle over and rushed Rachel, "It's all on me!" She clocked Rachel on the gut, then gave chase when she tried to flee, "I was still in control when I went off the deep end, and I'm still in control now!"

"You think you're hot stuff with that lame ass corny self life speech?!" Rachel shouted.

The two Brits kept shooting at each other while avoiding the reflected attacks, while Sokoto and Forte continued their pursuit battle over the river.

"I can never forgive her!" Forte screamed, "She must die!"

"Well, start forgiving, Quibbles!" Sokoto grabbed her halberd, pulled himself into melee range, and beat the nightlight out of her. On the final hit, his fist became a temporary energy Gatling gun, "And start croaking your voice while you're at it!" He slammed down on her head, plunging her, and a hundred energy balls, into the water.

"Seriously," Sokoto scratched his head, "What is it with Forte and Autumn?"

"Looks like we're about to find out," Silvia pointed to the glowing portal below. The water spewed Forte and a thousand ice crystals upward. Sokoto easily dodged it and shot his hook at Forte from the side, reeling her in and bonking her head.

"You need a chill pill, lady!" Sokoto pointed, "What's with you and Autumn?!"

"You think you're going to get me to throw up my grudge just like that?!" Forte prepared to rush him.

Back at the breezeway, Autumn was exhausted from knicking Tatenashi numerous times.

"Well, looks like this will be a piece of cake as well," Tatenashi said. She wafted her hand and moved the nanowater particles over Autumn's wings. She clenched her fists and locked Autumn in place.

Autumn looked up as her executioner held her lance to her chin, "Well...not dealing the final blow...so unlike you..."

"Likewise to you for that little show of affection back there," Tatenashi taunted.

"Eh...least I could do for Squall..."

"You think you can redeem yourself with that excuse after all you've done?" Tatenashi prepared to attack.

Then, with one voice, one common belief, Autumn, Cecilia, and Sokoto declared to the world, "I'M DONE THINKING!"

The Shinomure activated its failsafe function and disconnected the wings, giving Autumn the mobility she needed to jump over Tatenashi's attack and sock her one in the face. The IS reconnected its wings, allowing Autumn to blow all the nanomachines back at Tatenashi.

Cecilia's Starlight Rifle spewed a continuous laser, which she used to repeatedly slice Rachel's IS. When Rachel was stunned from the last hit, Cecilia flew high and emptied the laser out, crashing Rachel into the ground, not quite enough to finish her IS off, but more than enough to scar her for life.

Sokoto sidestepped Forte's thrust and kicked her face. The moment she was paralyzed was the moment Sokoto went ballistic, "LUMINANT GALLIC GUN!" He emptied his reserve energy on that one laser, completely shredding the Celsius's Tear and kicking Forte to the ground.

Autumn kicked Tatenashi out of the breezeway and into the line of sight of the Prime Minister's guards.

"Nngh-" Tatenashi was locked out thanks to her own nanomachines, "Not the best way to go..."

"There she is!" A guard yelled. They were about to pull her out, when Autumn suddenly beheaded them.

"There!" Autumn brushed her hands off, "That should satisfy my cravings for a while." She blew off the nanomachines on Tatenashi's IS, effectively freeing her, but forcing the Mysterious Lady back into standby mode. "Now, if you'll excuse me..." and she flew up to find Sokoto.

She found them on a bench, ISs spread out like a couple of drunken old geezers. She touched down right behind them.

"AAH! AUTUMN!" Sokoto yelped.

"And what might you be doing, may I ask?" Autumn retracted her gauntlets and crossed her arms.

"Oh, we were discussing a potential matchup between us," Cecilia fanned herself, "since we failed to deliver on the showdown of a lifetime during the pageant."

"A what?" Autumn retracted her IS and leaned against the bench.

"A contest to determine whether or not the chase will continue," Sokoto said, "Should I win, we will be granted asylum here in Canada. But should-" megaphone function activated "-COOTIE WOMAN-" normal voice "-win, we are banned from Canada."

"Wow..." Autumn whistled, "You really thought of that on your own?"

"I think so..." Cecilia grabbed her ears, "I can't remember anymore..."

"Eeeeeh, whatevs!" Sokoto slumped, "All we gotta do is survive the night! How hard can that be?"

"It's gonna get impossibly hard now that you've JINXED US!" Silvia nagged.

"And that's his IS?" Cecilia was still bewildered at how strong a connection he made to his IS that it could return snide one liners back at him.

"Yep," Autumn said, "Still don't know how it happened."

"You don't believe-"

"No way."

"Ah..." Cecilia withdrew her IS and walked towards him, "HEY, RENEGADE!"

Sokoto and Silvia stopped and looked up.

"What do you think?" Cecilia asked while putting her hands behind her back, "Do I look like a woman to you?"

Sokoto turned beet red. The Silver Streamline retreated.

"HAHAAA!" Silvia teased, "Cecilia used Double Mega Punch! Sokoto fainted!"

"I have no comment at this time..." Sokoto admitted defeat.

Cecilia giggled, "Well, good to know one man still recognizes my charms."

"He's 16," Autumn quipped.

"WHAT?!" Cecilia recoiled, "16?! He is IS Representative caliber at 16?!" She looked at him, still dazed from her Mega Milk special. "Huh...maybe it's my exhaustion, but he doesn't seem so bad..."

"What got into you?" Autumn asked.

"Dunno..." Cecilia answered, "but I think my eyes have just been opened. That, and I derailed my memory train just in the nick of time, so I'm deliriously happy..."

"Oh, I wouldn't be so sure," Tatenashi spied on them through her binoculars, mentally replaying a scene right before the middle finger of middle fingers.

Ichika and Houki were able to escape to a safe zone, a Japanese lookout over the entire park. They took a moment to breathe and admire the scenery. They were about to kiss when a rocket slammed into her and separated them, with Houki's barrier wiped out. After the blast subsided, Ichika looked around for any sign of Houki. Instead, he found Tatenashi, fully deployed. In reality, she stopped the last agents from executing their plans, but one of them had a rocket launcher that she couldn't catch in time. Only Cecilia, Kanzashi, and Charlotte saw that last bit. Everyone else arrived too late. They tried to make sense of the scene. But not Ichika. He was immediately sent into 3rd Shift White Tail.

Laura and Lingyin tried to pin it on Tatenashi.

"DO I LOOK LIKE I CARE?!" He bellowed.

Tatenashi didn't speak to anyone except Kanzashi after that, seldom Cecilia. She learned her lesson about how deceitful even her closest allies can be. And now, she must pass this lesson on to the whole world.

"Right..." Tatenashi hardened her heart once more, "Time for the big finale." She downed a super cell, replenishing enough of her energy to outlast the renegade, and hovered over to the UN agents assigned to finish the renegade off.

The same time Forte and Rachel recovered their psyches, and stormed their way out of the pit.

The UN agents found a spot to stay hidden.

"Are you ready?" The squad leader asked.

"Do we really have to do this?" Another.

"'Fraid so. We have our orders."

"Ready to launch, ma'am."

"Good. Fire when ready."

The agent inhaled and aimed at the renegade. She exhaled, "Fire." But just when the trigger was fully squeezed-

"Hold it!" Out of nowhere, Rachel surprised them with a gunshot. The agent was startled and misaligned.

"MOTHERF-" Autumn shoved Cecilia out of the way.

"What th-" Sokoto said too late.

The blast shattered Autumn's IS and blew Sokoto into an unfinished booth. The scene was a mess. Debris everywhere, construction projects reduced to shambles, and a completely stunned Cecilia who saw the whole even unfold before her eyes. She honestly thought she was in the clear, but she did not expect Tatenashi to recreate the very moment that banned her from everything.

"I...I...I..." Cecilia dropped to her knees. She felt a hand on her shoulder.

"You don't have to say anything," it was Rachel, "You can say everything and anything you want...in the rock." She turned to the UN, "Requesting custody of Cecilia Alcott for potential treason."

"Um," the UN agent stammered, "she's not in our jurisdiction. You do whatever you want with her."

"Very well," Rachel turned to her surviving teammates, "Take her away." Her mates handcuffed Cecilia and hauled her away.

But not before she saw Tatenashi emerge from the back and take center stage. She went back to paranoid mode and struggled against her captors, "YOU SNAKE! HOW COULD YOU?! HOW COULD YOU DO THIS?!"

Tatenashi turned an eye to Cecilia, "Should've kept your guard up." She turned to Forte, "If you would please."

"Gladly..." Forte cracked out a whip and walked towards the unconscious Autumn.

Cecilia's incessant rablings slowly brought Sokoto back to his senses, "Oooooohhhh...what happened..."

"I dunno..." Silvia muttered, "It's like we got blasted in the face by a taser or something..."

"Blasted..." he repeated.

"Yeah...what?" Silvia saw his concerned face.

Sokoto got rid of the debris pinning him down and stood up. He saw the ceiling of the collapsed booth that encased him and moved a plank of wood out to clear a pathway to a small crack in the wall. He peered right through it.

That blue haired girl again. And the rocket launcher in her hands. What's Forte doing to Autumn? And why's Cecilia being taken away for?!

"Sil...what's going on?" Sokoto muttered.

"It would seem that we were not the real target," Silvia said, "but Cecilia and Autumn-nee-sama."

"Ugh..." he rubbed his eyes and got a read on their auras, "We've been had..."

"Yeah...so, whaddaya wanna do?"

"Dunno, but I do know one thing," Sokoto tussled his hair and stepped back a few feet, "We're gonna rip their hearts wide open."

"Time to Crush 40?" Silvia cracked her knuckles.

"More like time to get a better pun," Sokoto got into his crouching tiger stance.

"Whatever, here we go," Silvia hacked into the protoype's rather lax security systems and sent a signal to local satellites to reroute every single speaker in the city of Montreal to the Streamline, "Ready?"

"Steady," Sokoto closed his eyes and allowed the emotions to swirl inside him.

"Go," Silvia hit play.

EMERGENCY OVERRIDE. CONVERTING EXCESS CONFUSION INTO ENERGY, MAX 5 MINUTES 16 SECONDS.


	3. Open Your Heart

_Part 3: Open Your Heart_

Cecilia broke free from her captors' grip and lashed out at Tatenashi, "Where were you when I was trapped in the compound, huh?!"

"I was on an errand," Tatenashi simply said, "I had to get all the food ready for the pageant. Remember?" A not-so-easily-decipherable reference to that time she was framed.

"You ugly-ACH-" Cecilia was kneed by Forte.

"And I thought you were insufferable as a skimpy schoolgirl..." Forte said.

Cecilia keeled over and looked up, confused and broken.

"Let it go, Forte," Tatenashi said, "That was a hassle you didn't need."

"Fine..." Forte grunted and went to stomp on Autumn.

"Oh, brother," Tatenashi sighed, "I think I've just been demoted from enemy to douche..." but right when she was about to consult with her UN comrades-

"ZZZZZTZZZTZTZZZZZT~~~~~~~~~~~"

The speakers silenced. The lights shut off.

"Was that you?" Rachel asked Tatenashi.

"I can't do that remotely..." Tatenashi said.

"Someone check the signals from the area!" Rachel ordered.

Tatenashi walked over to Cecilia and undid the cuffs.

"Huh?!" Cecilia noticed.

"Shh," Tatenashi hushed.

Cecilia massaged her wrists once the cuffs were gone, "What's your game now?"

"You know what comes next."

"!!" Cecilia remembered. That night, Ichika lost control of himself and lashed out at everyone, when his IS was in the 3rd Shift! How's the renegade going to top that?!

 _(Music start)_

Just then, a small hum that gradually built up to a musical rumble shook the island.

"What's happening?" Forte asked.

"Our worst nightmare," Tatenashi stood back.

"From the renegade?"

"Yup."

"Nu-uh," Forte did not believe that.

"Rachel!" Someone yelled, "All the lightning and sound is linked to one source!"

"Did you find it?" Rachel said.

The agent suddenly got really scared, "...over there..."

"The-huh?..."

Everyone took a small glance at the source. It was the same booth they saw the renegade slam into. Once the heard a guitar, they prepared for battle. But once they heard a hard rocking beat, they saw the booth explode and become a giant pillar of light.

The renegade was gathering a ton of energy in a very short amount of time, "...aaaaaaaAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLRIGHT!" When he finished, he dispelled the pillar and revealed a radically different appearance. His IS got very tall. A golden glow encompassed every part of it. His visor and hook shot were gone. His wings were replaced with pure energy, just like the Silverio Gospel's.

No one saw this coming. Cecilia recognized the same scramble when Ichika was blasted by the Gospel and his IS changed shape. In the identical manner, Sokoto's IS changed as well. That was bad news for everyone here.

Rachel wasn't fazed. Despite her IS being low on barrier energy, she deployed it anyway and fired her Gatling Ranger.

Just a hair too late. Sokoto had already elbowed her head, sending her back all the way to the tree at the southern end of the park, after which he hit her with a powerful linear palmar blast.

 _(Thunder, rain, and lightning...)_

The blast could be seen and heard throughout the riverside.

 _(Danger: water rising...)_

After the initial light show, a series of explosions rocked the laser's path, with the majority of them detonated near or on Rachel.

 _(Clamor, sirens wailing...)_

Rachel tried to move her body, but Sokoto was already on top of her. He grabbed her shoulders, and took two twirls to throw her back to the prototype.

 _(It's such a bad sign!)_

The Maid of Horror skipped water like a flat pebble, and crashed into the bank, felling the tree into the water and shredding her IS.

 _(Shadows of dark creatures...)_

Tatenashi and Forte down the last two super cells and rushed to the impact area.

 _(Steel clouds floating in the air...)_

But when they got there, Rachel had a fractured arm and leg. The renegade suddenly appeared in front of her.

 _(People, run for shelter...)_

Tatenashi and Forte backed off a little bit and waited for Rachel to be dealt with. It didn't happen.

 _(What's gonna happen to us?!)_

He just picked her up and threw her towards the inner area, like a dried up rag doll.

 _(All the steps we take, all the moves we make, all the pain at stake...)_

Forte and Tatenashi were forced to team up and try to rein him in. They deployed their ISs, weapons at the ready.

 _(I see the chaos for everyone! Who are we?! What can we do?!)_

Sokoto clenched his fists, generating a golden energy wave around him. He dared them to attack first. And attack they did. They launched a unison attack, Freeze Lancer Bomb.

 _(You and I are the same, in the way that we have our own styles and we won't change.)_

None of the crystals hit. He dodged all of them with little effort, even redirected a couple of them back at Forte out of pure spite.

 _(Yours is filled with evil, and mine's not!)_

Forte clearly took offense to that. She broke off and tried to swing at him, while Tatenashi switched to providing cover fire.

 _(There is no way I can loooooooooose!)_

It didn't mean jack diddly squat. Sokoto swiped the halberd from Forte and stabbed her, them hammered her all the way down to the ground.

 _(Can't hold on much longer. [BUT I WILL NEVER LET GO!])_

Another crater was made. Forte was barely able to climb out, when she was dragged back in. When she resisted, she was lifted up by the feet and slammed onto the bottom.

 _(I know it's a one way trap. [TELL ME NOW HOW LONG THIS'LL LAST!])_

Tatenashi used her lance to create a water clone of herself, and took it with her to fend off the renegade. She managed to stop him from massacring Forte with a shot to his face. Her clone got a couple hits in before he grabbed its neck.

 _(I'm not gonna think this way. [NOR WILL I COUNT ON OTHERS!])_

He used the clone as a shield and swatted away any close range attacks before putting the clone out of its misery, by shoving its head into the dirt wall and blasting it to hell.

 _(Close my eyes and feel the burn. [NOW, I SEE WHAT I GOTTA DO!])_

Tatenashi shut her eyes to concentrate and sent out a distress signal that caught the attention of the Prime Minister. He ordered the Dream Duster and Maple Slinger be deployed immediately.

 _(Open your heart! It's gonna be alright.)_

Sokoto fended off Tatenashi and brutally beat Forte down, destroying her IS and cracking several of her ribs. She fell on her back, finally getting a glimpse of who he really was. Almost, since an agent managed to hit him with a frag grenade, and made him look like the Angel of Death. The halberd barely missed her head. The renegade switched targets and flew out to find the one who screwed his aim.

 _(Ancient cities blazing...)_

He ended up not caring and just set fire to everything Montreal was trying to do in the park.

 _(Shadows keep attacking...)_

Everyone got word of the Prime Minister's order. They banded together and emptied out everything they had to try and stall for time.

 _(Little children crying...)_

But they countless amounts of bullets and grenades didn't faze him in the slightest. The renegade just solidified his wings into pure energy blades and sped up.

 _(CONFUSION! HOPELESS ANGER!)_

Those wings cut through anything and anyone in their way, about as much as his balls exploded out of his palms. An ungodly amount of blood spilled, and there was more coming.

 _(I don't know what it can be, but you drive me crazy!)_

Tatenashi hovered high above to see what was happening. She was only now thinking that maybe this wasn't a good idea, given how blunt he was with his emotions. But she shook it off and flew in.

 _(All your cunning tricks make me sick!)_

Through all the destruction he caused, the renegade knew Tatenashi was coming. He flew straight at her, slamming his fist into her lance.

 _(You won't have it your own waaaaaaaaaay!)_

The renegade very quickly disoriented her and put her in a choke hold. But it didn't last long as he was rattled by bulletfire from behind, which gave Tatenashi the opportunity to repel him and fire her own bullet stream.

 _(Can't hold on much longer. [BUT I WILL NEVER LET GO!])_

It was the Dream Duster and Maple Slinger, come just in time. The pair pounded the renegade with energy shots and rapid-fire sabot rounds. The renegade was about to blast them, but Tatenashi managed to swing her lance and knock him down to the breezeway.

 _(I know it's a one way trap. [TELL ME NOW HOW LONG THIS'LL LAST!])_

She quickly followed up by splashing nanowater on him and locking him down. The other pilots flew into the arena and started to bring the rain.

 _(I'm not gonna think this way. [NOR WILL I COUNT ON OTHERS!])_

The Maple Slinger used its Slingshot to grab the renegade and flung him upwards through the castle breezeway. He got free and fired his own barrage of energy. The trio got out in time and flew up to pursue the renegade.

 _(Close my eyes and feel the burn. [NOW, I SEE WHAT I GOTTA DO!])_

The Dream Duster was the first to confront the renegade in midair. They flew across the area, exchanging bullets and energy balls, until he saw the Maple Slinger and Mysterious Lady move in for a back assault.

 _(Open your heart, and you will SEE!)_

He reversed course with an Ignition Boost and activated his Feels ability. He forced a fist and a kick on their stomachs and chins, and they felt it. He ended by putting his arms out and letting out a huge explosion blas from each hand, huge enough for people on the outskirts of the city to see.

Cecilia stayed hidden behind some trees, clinging to the bark so that she and Autumn don't get blown off the park. She looked at all the carnage the renegade wrought. It was definitely worse than that of Ichika's. Whereas the most he did was leave a trail of rubble, here everything was up in flames, which made her wonder what could have happened had they not immediately backed off the next day. She was utterly frightened, but she was also fully aware of what was happening in her mind. She fought through her fears and deployed the Mermaid's Tears. She was extra careful in avoiding everything that looked destructible and stashed Autumn in a cave. Then, she heard what sounded like a rainbow explosion.

The Dream Duster has already fallen. And the Maple Slinger and Mysterious Lady were in serious condition. Cecilia got worried and jumped into the fray. She knew her own IS had a quarter of the barrier energy left, but she didn't care. She was done thinking. She had to stop him. She came in with a fist ready to knock some sense into him.

But he caught it, "ALRIGHT!" He shot out a blast and repelled her by a football court's length.

"Yeah..." he was satisfied and turned his attention back to the remaining pilots.

 _(IF IT WON'T STOP,)_

They tried to hold him at bay, but he just ignored their attacks and turned to his full might.

 _(there can be no future for us.)_

He grabbed Tatenashi by her neck and swung her back. Then, he unloaded a barrage of energy balls, none of which she was able to dodge.

 _(IT'S HEARTS TIED DOWN BY)_

The Maple Slinger tried to distract him. That worked too well, as he started to bombard her with punches and kicks.

 _(all the hate! GOTTA SET IT FREEEEEEEEEE!)_

When the Slinger ran out of energy and he was about to deal the final blow, he was pushed back by a sudden piercing shot from Cecilia, who was at a safe distance to surveil and fire at him without immediate retaliation. His hit left several openings for the others to capitalize on.

 _(I know it's a one way trap. [TELL ME NOW HOW LONG THIS'LL LAST!])_

The renegade took a couple hits before he caught Tatenashi's lance in the middle of the blitz. He grabbed it and swung his leg into her neck while shrugging off the lance's Gatling barrels.

 _(Close my eyes and feel the burn. [NOW, I SEE WHAT I GOTTA DO!])_

That Tatenashi was just a water clone. And there were four more to contend with. He jumped in the middle of the fray and dealt with them all the same. But two of them didn't simply disintegrate.

 _(Gotta open your heart, dude!)_

Cecilia hit the clones, causing them to explode. At the same time the Slinger let loose an energy shot from its cannon that hit him and sent him flying into Tatenashi's lance. He suffered a shoulder wound and a bullet storm.

 _(Can't hold on much longer. [BUT I WILL NEVER LET GO!])_

The renegade flew back, right into the Slinger's line of fire. Tatenashi quickly realized what he was about to do and chased after him. But he was too fast, and he socked the Slinger before she could get away and shot her down, all while avoiding every single one of Cecilia's shots.

 _(I know it's a one way trap. [TELL ME NOW HOW LONG THIS'LL LAST!])_

He then swung his fist behind him, breaking Tatenashi's lance. She tried to throw her last nanowater bombs at him, but he made extremely short work of her. He was about to kill her when a shot from Cecilia stopped him.

 _(I'm not gonna think this way. [NOR WILL I COUNT ON OTHERS!])_

He threw her to the lake and bolted towards Cecilia. She saw him coming and flipped her rifle over. She swung at him when he got near enough, but he punched it, causing an energy wave to spread out throughout the area. They engaged in hand-to-rifle combat, descending towards the destroyed castle.

 _(Close my eyes and feel the burn. [NOW, I SEE WHAT I GOTTA DO!])_

By the time they touched the ground, Cecilia had taken every possible blow she could without losing her barrier. A punch however toppled her backward, and allowed her to shoot his head and wings.

 _(Open your heart! It's gonna be alriiiiiiiiiiiiiiight, yeah!)_

But through those shots, he blasted her rifle off. He tackled her and punched her through the castle.

That's it. Cecilia's done. She was the only person standing between the renegade and total destruction. And there she was, flying through the park in slow motion, rewitnessing all the damage that her friends' unnecessary hissy fit caused.

 _(Open your heart!)_

Why did they let their emotions consume them? Probably the same reason why the renegade went Broly on her. They had one goal, but they wanted to accomplish it first. So, instead of someone claiming him, he claimed all of them.

And soon, the renegade will claim her.

 _(OPEN YOUR HEART!)_

As soon as they were out of the burning park, he blew out a massive combo that followed with a hammer kick that plunged her downward, then plunged faster than her and stopped her from falling with a giant Luminant Gallic Gun that tore her IS in pieces and ate her skin, costing him his metal arms and legs, then got above her and ended the fight with a stomp to her gut.

 _(Yeah-eah, yeeeeahhhhh...)_

 **-UNKNOWN-**

The same kind of stomp she used on a little boy when they were 12 years younger, just for sneezing on her. Both her parents saw the stomp and quickly restrained her.

"This is not how I raised my daughter to behave!" Her father said.

"You didn't raise me! And neither did this filthy ruffian!" Young Cecilia snapped, "I demanded an apology, and he refused!"

"Then ignore him," her mother said, "Do not descend to the level of a beast."

Cecilia really wanted to hit him, but she conceded, due to pending punishment if she did otherwise.

"Let's go," her mother said, "we're late...no thanks to your father..."

They left on the limousine. He got up and brushed him off. He walked in that direction when he bumped into someone.

"Oh my gosh," it was a young maid-in-training, "I'm so sorry! Did I hurt you?"

He shook his head.

"Well, it's odd you can take a hit like that," the girl commented, "Where are your parents?"

He cocked his head, then looked over to the man dressed in black street clothes, hoodie covering a mohawk.

"Well," the girl gave an awkward wave hello, "At least he doesn't seem-HOLY! I'm gonna miss the bus!" She ran off, but shouted while running, "What's your name?!"

He didn't say anything, just looked at her confused.

"It's ok! I'm sure we'll see each other again! I think!" She said as she jumped into the bus right before it left.

The boy just stared blankly at the bus, when the man spat at him. He scratched his head and looked at the man funny.

"You think I'm blind?" The man said, "Why the hell didn't you say anything?"

The boy just shrugged.

"Ugh...if only you could talk as good as you shoot..." the man scratched his head. Just then, a black car with dark black window tint sped down the road, "*WHISTLE*...what I'd give to own a car like that..." Then he got off and wrapped the boy around his neck, "Alright, kid. You know the drill. Shins first, heads last."

The boy nodded and whipped out a gun-

"Not now!" The man yelled, "Wait till we're at the terminal, dammit!"

Well, when they got there, it was twice as busy. A perfect way for the young lad to blend in and shoot his targets. And that was just the entrance; imagine what it's like inside.

"Ok, kid," mohawk man said, "Our targets should on either side. Look for anyone who's not in a hurry."

The kid looked around and found someone. He pointed to her. It was that girl from earlier, jumping up and down for some reason.

"One: she's not tall enough," the man said, "Two: you had your chance."

Just then, the man saw two pairs of men sneak out of the crowd and go to opposite sides of the station.

"Take the left," he dropped the boy off and darted ahead.

The kid looked at the man easily slipping past the crowd and confronting the pair. He wanted to do the same, but when he looked around, everything was like a crowded forest. There was no room for him to jump around. The best he did was squeeze through people's legs, tapping their calves to beg for some elbow room. The girl saw him fall on his face when he escaped from the crowd. He looked around to make sure no one saw him and made a hard left. She decided to follow him.

In the small gap between buildings, he peeked over the corner and saw two men installing a bomb, or something, to the wall. He didn't know what that was, but he guessed it wasn't good.

"Who the hell are you, kid?" The man asked.

The kid just stepped back and walked away.

"Damn brats..." the man said, "Alright, let get th-" *SNP*SNP* "AGH!"

"What th-" *SNP*BLAM* "AGH! DAMMIT!" The other man screamed. His partner just had his forearms and shins shot through. The thing they just installed was now useless because of that other bullet that made it explode, causing shrapnel to sting his eyes and skin. He saw that kid walk towards him, gun loaded and pointed.

"Tch..." the man said, "You Japs think you're hot shit, don't you?" He felt the barrel against his neck as the boy cocked the gun.

But just then, that girl interrupted, "Grandfather?!"

"Ngh! Chelsea?!" He said, "What are you doing here?!"

"Mommy said you were sick..."

"Well, just get this kid off me!"

But before anything could happen, the mohawk guy suddenly ran to their way, "SOMEONE ELSE HAS THE BOMB! GET OUT NOW!"

"Bomb?! What?!" Chelsea was being pushed back by the boy.

The old man pulled his gun out, "You stupid Asian-"

BOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!!!*

A giant explosion rocked the Terminal Station a blew a small hole on their side. Chunks of brick and metal slammed into the two men and crushed them.

"NOOOO! GRANDFATHER!" Chelsea ran up and tried to get him out, but the mohawk man grabbed her.

"He's already gone! We have to get you out too!"

"Noooo! I want to see grandfather!"

"Will you give it a rest?!"

The boy looked at them, then inside the reddened station. He peered in and saw that blonde girl who kicked him earlier, trapped with her parents. If he chose to go in and try to rescue them, this would be his second trip to Hell. But what did he know? He just went in.

"Hey! Are you crazy?!" The mohawk man saw him go in.

"What's he doing?!" Chelsea looked at him go, then saw the train, and who was in it, "Oh no! CECILIA!" She broke free of the man's grabs and ran inside.

The boy tiptoed and jumped over everything to try and get to the people still trapped inside the train. He picked up a light royal shield for protection, and not just because it looked cool. He needed it, because one of the steel pillars that held the roof up fell in front of him, shaking the very foundation and caused several bars to fall all over. He shielded himself from the sparks and dust, then continued onward. The fallen debris made a perfect hill for him to climb over and survey the station for a safe route.

"Hey!" Chelsea ran up to him, "What are you...oh my...why..."

He tugged her sleeve and pointed to the car where Cecilia was located, then a steel bar acting as a bridge over the burning tracks.

"Are you crazy?!" Chelsea asked, "We'll be dead by then!"

He didn't listen. He just went over and walked it like a tightrope. Chelsea groaned in frustration and walked it with him. They were careful to slide each step across due to the instability of the bar. They made it to the roof of the train in little time, just as the bar fell to the tracks and shook the station again, making another bar crash down and break a hole in the roof.

"Great!" Chelsea whined, "The door won't open until we present the keys to it!"

He pointed to the bar, which acted as a ramp for them to climb down. Chelsea peered over.

"Hey! Cecilia!" She shouted, "Cecilia!" She ran down and hugged the motionless doll, "It's ok! I'm here! We're gonna...*COUGH*COUGH*...get you out...*COUGH*"

The boy looked down and saw a small crack in the door. He used the ramp to gain enough speed to ram the shield through the crack and bust a way out. But that took away his strength, and he collapsed when he hit the ground. Right when two Gen 1 ISs cleared a path for the police and fire officers to barge in and get them out.

The boy woke up one hour later attached to an oxygen machine. He looked around at all the lights, the cameras, and the people that gathered around to witness the spectacle he became. And as always, he sat up with eyes of wonder. The people flashed all kinds of cameras and gibberish. The doctors didn't bother to push them away.

The boy saw the two girls sitting in a fire truck. Cecilia had to be carried away to an ambulance, while Chelsea stared at the ground. He tore off the mask and pushed his way to Chelsea. She still had the shield that housed them to safety. He ran up to her and stared.

"Y'know," she still had her eyes down, "My grandfather used to tell me stories of how people could be bad. They betray you in a heartbeat. They want to hurt you."

He shook his head.

"I know," she said, "but still. It's nice to know that there are people who are kind, don't you think?"

He nodded. Just then, he heard mohawk man's voice,

"Yeah, he don't know any better. Don't care where you're from, who you are, or how much you make. Your ass is in trouble, he gonna yank you out."

He was talking to Chelsea's parents who hugged both children for saving their only daughter. He didn't know why they were crying, but he just went with it and returned the favor.

"Ok, ok," the man said, "C'mon, kid. We gotta go."

The boy nodded and left the group.

"Wait!" Chelsea yelled, "What's your name?"

The man and the boy turned back. The boy didn't know how to respond, so the man answered for him, "His name's Sokoto!" He pricked the boy's butt, "This jumper is called Sokoto. Remember that!" The man left. The boy rubbed his bottom and tried to keep up.

"Goodbye, Sokoto!" Chelsea screamed, "And thank you!"

Ten minutes later, in an alleyway, where mohawk man had Sokoto on his back, "Pain in the ass, we wasted our time here! Mommy's dead, pappy's been swapped out by a D-list has been, the intel we got was completely off...shoulda jumped some wannabes in Hokkaido instead, huh?"

He felt a rumble on his neck. The kid he was carrying fell asleep.

"Heh, I'll bet the boss'll be angrier at you shutting up the whole time...alright..." the man pulled his hoodie down and welcomed the cloudy sky, "To the plane back to Shibuya...gonna have us some good ramen. And don't steal my bowl this time, kid."


	4. Let It Out

_Part 4: Let It Out_

 **-SAINT-LUC HOSPITAL, QUÉBEC PROVINCE; TWO WEEKS AFTER PAGEANT-**

Cecilia went through those memories for what seemed like an eternity. She could see the doctors and nurses rush her to treatment. One moment she laid her head down on her pillow in an ambulance, and the next she suddenly woke up in a ...bed? It felt like a bed, but someone put a medical blindfold on her. She was about to get out of-

"Not yet."

She jolted her head and felt it. Her neck was still gafted from the fight, and her spine was still burning. She put her head down and tilted to her le-

"The doctor said it'd be a week before you can start to fully move around again."

"Ch...Chelsea?..." her voice slowly quivered.

"Yeah..." Chelsea sat in the chair on the corner behind the hospital bed.

"What are you doing here?..."

"Well," Chelsea sighed, "The Class 4 proposal went through...everyone who graduated from the IS Academy two years four months ago will form a group separate from the UN task force and the Black Hare. This group will use deadly force against the renegade and his cohorts. Away from urban areas."

"You mean..."

"Yep...by order of the Alaska Council, you have to see him again."

"Oh, god, no..." Cecilia tried to cover her face, but her shoulders still ached.

Chelsea put a hot wet towel on her head.

"Uh..." Cecilia was a little confused as to why Chelsea would do that.

"And I've been assigned to you as a bodyguard," Chelsea stated, "I'm just performing my duties, nothing more."

"Oh..." Cecilia lay silent.

"And that blindfold...your eyes were damaged by the renegade's Luminant Gallic Gun, so they had to do surgery on them."

"What?...whose eyes do I have?..."

"How should I know?"

"Hmph...figured..."

"You know, you could've at least pretended to bury the hatchet."

"Define pretended ..."

Then, Chelsea stood up and let a certain shield clang on the ground. Cecilia twitched.

"Pretended you were in danger...pretended you need help? Pretended you care about someone?! PRETENDED YOU STILL HAD SOMETHING TO FIGHT FOR?!"

"Give it a rest, will you?" Cecilia folded her arms, trying not to lose herself in sadness again, "Everything was a fake. All a cliched, overly dramatic illusion meant to fool me into believing I meant something to anyone. Look at how easily I lost my fortune! My house! My reputation! What's left?!" She couldn't hold on anymore and lost herself, "Just a relic of the past...dangling from an old shell..."

Chelsea felt for her. She really did, but she couldn't allow herself to. She had to make her see-Uh, I mean...dammit-that it's not about her. She picked up the shield, and dropped it on her lap, "Was that an illusion?"

Cecilia ran her hands over the thing that Chelsea dropped. Every crease, edge, the shape of the crest, she slowly made out what it was. And stopped crying. It was the same thing she saw bust that door down all those years ago. The same thing that provided an escape route away from the crumbling train.

But Chelsea didn't stop there, "Am I an illusion?"

Cecilia kept her mouth shut. She just tossed the shield out the window.

"Well," Chelsea brushed her dust in Cecilia's direction, "I'll see myself out..." and stomped out the room. Once she slammed the door, Cecilia finally let it all go.

"Oh, finally..." she needed to be alone, to break down solitude, "Where's the renegade when you need him..."

 **-SÛRETÉ DU QUÉBEC-**

The renegade was turning his solitary confinement cell into a parkour room, doing flips and tricks and grab-twirls and wall-ceiling running like nobody's business, all under the confused watchful eyes of the police and scientific communities.

"Where the hell does he get this kind of hyper-go-on energy from..." a warden mumbled.

"He said he had Red Bull..." another warden said.

"What? No. We just gave him water, and that placebo drink from a month ago."

"Yes..." a scientist was staring at a computer screen speechless, "and that placebo told us everything we needed to know..."

"Why're you so haunted, eh?"

"Look..." everyone turned their attention to the screen to see the results of three weeks of fitness tests, mental tests, interviews, and urine and not urine samples, and what the learned from these himself.

One one side listed the currently known components of a core of the IS. The names of those components were connected by lines to the other side, Sokoto's body. Or, away from him. There was nothing to indicate that any weird substances were inside his body. He was clean.

"No way...well, then why was he able to defy all odds and move the damn thing?!" An officer yelled.

"I don't know..." a scientist theorized, "It may be because of all the intense training he received during his childhood. He was with a yakuza clan from age 3 onward..."

"Oh, don't give me that! You're telling me that he got bored of walking, so he decided to flip his way outta trouble?! No, get out."

"You think he could handle that much as a child?!"

"What I don't get is why we're even talking about this. So, he's clean. What is there to talk about?"

"Are you seriously saying that? I tried to kill him yesterday with a sniper, and he ducked under it! Someone else tried to shoot him, and he caught the bullet! How are you keeping a straight face while telling me that that's normal?!"

While they were discussing the infinite number of things wrong with this scenario, Silvia was able to travel through the wires undetected and listen in to the conversation. Every stat she looked at was just as confusing to her. How did his body adjust to be a living tank with that slim a body? More importantly, what did he have to go through to be athletic as he was? Did any trauma or harsh experiences alter his compatibility with the IS? Her mind was racking with questions that didn't have easily found answers. She'll need to get back to Sokoto on that.

 **-MONTREAL GENERAL HOSPITAL-**

While Madoka was in the middle of recovering from her surgery, Autumn was spilling everything she knew to the UN agents, when they all got word of what the scientists have found inside the renegade.

"Aw, dammit..." Autumn seemed let down, "And I really wanted to see a core inside him..."

"So, he really is all natural, huh?" An interrogator said.

"Would that explain his unreasonably upgrade, though?" Another interrogator, "As soon as he redeployed, it went back to 1st shift."

"Wait, what?" Autumn interrupted, "It jumped shift?"

"Uh...yeah..." the agent showed her a video they were able to salvage from the Mermaid's Tears. It showed the Silver Streamline getting blown into a booth, then flashed forward to the Streamline taking on a more robust form and knocking the Maid of Horror out of the park in one hit.

"Ok, new theory..." she muttered, "The Saya-genie claimed it made the damn Stratos to spite the Japanese for putting the Saiyan race in a bad light."

To her surprise, she got a chuckle.

Madoka, however, couldn't say anything. She was wearing a recovery mask to cut the wait time down. With no one interrogating her, and the doctor forbidding her from shouting, she had to console herself with the vision of her and the renegade's younger selves comforting each other, on a loop. She couldn't help herself most of the time, as she had lost her violent tendencies during the surgery.

 **-ONE MONTH AFTER PAGEANT-**

The week passed with little buzz about the renegade, and instead turned to the month in the outside world for fuel to the flames. The Canadian DisneySea prototype was scrapped and reverted back to an arboretum. The Prime Minister's approval rating took a sharp drop after information leaked about his involvement with the sex trade network. The renegade was released mere minutes before everyone else was wrapping up their checkout. Rumors were flying all over about Canada separating from the British Commonwealth, mostly voluntarily. The pageant winners were allowed to come to the IS Academy in the middle of the semester. The Class 4 proposal passed, with conditions.

All in all, nothing slowed down. In fact, maybe the opposite.

The renegade was dropped off at Autumn and Madoka's resting places. He and Silvia waited in the lobby for an hour until they walked out.

And they looked like something you'd see on CosmopolitanTV.

"Whoa!" Sokoto whistled, "Quite the getup for a hospital checkout."

"I know, my idea," Autumn said, "and Nyanyan here went along with me. Without talking back."

"What?!" Silvia suddenly screamed, "She always talks back! What the hell?!"

"Probably something to do with natural beauty and seeing her for her and-KLOBwuuhhhhhhhhhhhh..." Autumn had too much fun with Madoka and got clobbered.

"Wow...still feisty, though..." Sokoto commented.

"Yeah, but look at M!" Silvia pointed.

Madoka grabbed her elbow and looked the other way, pink in the cheek.

"Uhhhh..." Sokoto was speechless.

"Ok..." Silvia picked up on their one-to-one transport, "I'll check on Autumn, you stop the apocalypse." She fizzled to Autumn's shoulder.

And the two were left to stare at each other in the void of time.

Sokoto made the first move. He leaned over and took a look at what the surgeons had done.

"Well, hey!" He said, "You kept your old face!"

"Yeah..." Madoka said, "I couldn't think of another face..."

"Really? I's positive you didn't wanna look like your siblings..."

"Actually, I was thinking about wearing your fa-"

OOPS.

They both heard it. No take backs. Just pure awkward silence.

Sokoto now knew he got through to her. He could finally begin to help her wipe her slate clean.

But Madoka quickly changed to another subject that badly needed to be addressed, "That night you were with Kanzashi...when was that?..."

Sokoto gave it some thought, "See...that was before the eruption, and after we got your IS free..."

"Ok...I've heard enough," Madoka was relieved.

"Why you ask?"

"Well..." she finally mustered enough strength to shut down her embarrassing side, "What am I to you?"

He didn't hesitate this time, "Well, you do give off that older sister vibe."

OOPS. PART 2.

She seriously thought he would say something stronger, unrelated to siblings. At least, that's what she wanted him to say. She looked forward and checked his eyes to confirm her suspicions. No change. Now she knows what's really happening.

No one had the basic decency to teach him about basic decency. That meant it fell to her to knock some sense into him and teach him what it meant to be a man. If she could do that at all. If not, then it's just a matter of common sense according to her. After all, that's what older siblings do, right? Of course that'd mean she has limits on him just as much as he has on her.

Then again, the upside is that she can make him do whatever she wants if she goads him enough.

"Ok...I believe you..." she said.

"Really?"

"Yeah...I'm ready to...get on board..."

"Y'know," Sokoto thought her spunk sounded forced, "I just need you to be yourself. Not some punk rocker in a tutu."

"How do you know what that looked like?"

"Experience."

"Fine." Madoka walked towards Autumn, who was busy throwing a fit over the amount of heart-shaped eyes in nurse outfits glomping at her.

"Onii-chan! HEEEEEEEEEEEELP!" Silvia couldn't do anything to stop the paparazzi. Sokoto rushed over to-

POP*POP*POP*

He felt three foam things bounce off his neck and head, "Hey, what's the big-"

Within half a second, Madoka got her arm around his waist, her chin on his shoulder, and her Nerf gun on his neck, keeping the same light pink aura she had since talking with him, whispering, "But try anything funny and you're dead." She gently ran everything across the surfaces of contact and left him to tend to Autumn.

Sokoto, for some reason, was not horrified. Just in shock and awe. How did he miss that? Her aura was clearly pink! How did she completely fool him?! Wait, was she trying to fool him?

Silvia fizzled to his side, "Whoa...she's scary..."

"Yeah...yeah, she is..." Sokoto said.

"Hey, blubber ball!" Madoka called, "Time to go!"

Sokoto ran out into the taxi she called over and drove to Saint-Luc Holy Mother of God Why There You Dingle McCringle Tingle?!

 **-SAINT-LUC HOSPITAL-**

The renegade requested to see Cecilia, and the staff escorted them to her room.

Where Chelsea was standing by, "She hasn't said anything to anyone. Not even me."

"That's odd," a nurse said, "The fight wasn't that traumatic, was it?"

"I should think not. She keeps mumbling about the train, her parents' deaths, and the fireworks."

"Are they related to her past at all?"

"Yes. Today marks the twelfth anniversary of her parents' death at Kings Cross."

Sokoto sensed a very disturbed aura from behind the door. He put his ear on the door, yet all he heard was a light breeze.

"Hold up," Sokoto thought out loud, "Window open, not feeling that great...Well, BAALS to you!" He tried the handle. It didn't budge.

The others took note.

"Is anyone else in there with her?!" Chelsea showed concern.

"No!" A nurse panicked.

Silvia fizzled to the lock and tried to mess with it. "Dammit, she complicated the passcode! I can wipe it, but it'll take minutes!"

"Alright, move!" Sokoto activated his shield bracelet, "I'm busting through!"

"You're doing what?!" Chelsea stammered.

Sokoto stepped back against the opposite wall, "Madoka! Autumn! No one moves through that door!" And he ran forward and bashed through, taking the door down as he rolled into the room.

Madoka and Autumn just stood there, absolutely amazed by how he dissed everyone around him, including Chelsea, and just jumped in without a moment's thought. They peeked in to witness the saga unfold.

Thankfully, it was just beginning. Cecilia was standing in front of the window taking in the gentle winds, while Sokoto was poised fifteen feet away from the bed, prepared for the worst. She still had that blindfold on, holding everything to silent hostage. He dared not move, let he accidentally push her off the edge. Nothing made any noise for a whole minute.

Then, she began, "Did you know...you can never truly forget anything?...The subconscious of our minds automatically records everything we see in secret..."

"Uhhhh...ok...why're you telling me?" Sokoto stood fully upright.

"I've had time to think...time to process everything that happened here...everything I remembered...even when I didn't want to remember it, my subconscious made me..."

"What didn't you want to remember?..."

"That day... a little tyke busted the door down, and gave me a way out, just before the world came down...it was you, wasn't it?...You pulled me out of the train and into safety, right when the station collapsed and crushed the car..."

"Why does that matter? What bottomless pit of darkness do I need to pull you out of?" Oh, god, this will go wrong before it goes right...

"Actually...I've fallen too deep...I'm afraid it's impossible for me to get out..."

"What?! Come on! We have a rope! Indestructible! You can still get out!"

He twitched when she moved, but relaxed when he saw it was just her hands. She started to undo her blindfold, "I never pegged you as a selfless scapegoat...always putting your life on the clothesline like you had no life to live..."

"Hey, everyone las a right to life. That's my credo. I live how I want. What about you? We can help you clean up your mess. Help you start over. You can really live your life. Aren't you going to let us help you?"

The blindfold was loosed into the sky. The tears flowed out from her eyes and sprinkled all over the wind. She turned her goodbye gaze to him. He saw. Her eyes were purple.

"No...I don't deserve your kindness..." In that split second, she saw the renegade and a shadow of tiny Ichika right behind him, both making a mad dash to her as she toppled out. He through his shield to block the window, but the sudden wind current blew it off course. It bounced off the bed and missed, hitting her side instead. She fell out.

He ran to catch her feet, but was not fast enough, "No! No, I didn't mean-"

"Nii, chillaaax..." Silvia suddenly fizzled in front of him.

"Chill?!" Sokoto freaked out, "I just killed someone I didn't wanna kill, AND YOU WANT ME TO CHI-"

Instead of a splat, they heard a rather loud CRASH! They looked down at the street.

The Mermaid's Tears's Absolute Defense automatically protected her... and caused a giant traffic jam.

Sokoto sunk, "Oh, crap..."

OOPS. PART 3.

 **-TWO HOURS LATER-**

"You're lucky no one saw that, little punk!" Chelsea said.

"I didn't mean to do that! I misfired, ok?!" Sokoto protested.

"Yeah, it was the wind that knocked-" Silvia was cut off.

"Can it, fairy!" Chelsea snapped, "I thought you were better than this, but of course you had to make things worse!"

"Better than doing nothing, if you ask me," Sokoto folded his arms.

"What kind of logic is that?!"

Madoka and Autumn just sat there. They had to help Cecilia back on the bed and told her (and themselves) to shut up, while Sokoto, Silvia, and Chelsea were arguing about whether he actually meant to kill her. All the while the authorities and medical staff were trying to write it off as a freak accident in the face of very confused, somewhat agitated people.

Cecilia tried to speak up, "Um...may I-"

"Not now!" Chelsea snapped.

And somehow, Cecilia got mad, "I don't know why you're even bothering with this."

"You're not mad he tried to kill you?!"

"Were you not listening to what I just said?!" Sokoto freaked.

"You didn't save my life! You ruined my death, is what you did!" Cecilia said what?

"Oh no..." Autumn face palmed.

"Fucking kill me..." Madoka muttered.

"What...did you say..." Chelsea trembled.

"Are you deaf?" Cecilia really let it out, "Might I recommend plucking your ear wax over my grave?"

"Do you have any idea what you're saying?!"

"Why would it matter to you?! Since you clearly have more important things to worry about!"

"Like what?!"

"Like taking my place, for starters."

"That was not my decision! It was by order of Parliament!"

"Hang Parliament! Hang the code! HANG THE RULES! If anybody's to rob everything I have, I would expect no less from you."

"How could you be like this, when YOU WERE THE ONE WHO JUMPED SHIP WHEN THIS MAGGOT STORMED SHIBUYA?!"

"Don't compare me to those bimbos who fawned over that traitor!"

"They stayed over and helped! What did you do?!"

"I did what was necessary!"

"Was starting a separate IS union nece-"

 **SMACK***

They both got hit with the shield and fell on the floor. They rubbed the impact areas and looked behind them.

Sokoto held the royal shield up, deployed his IS's arms, and crushed it into a metal ball. Then he dropped it and let it roll in between them, catching the wrong kind of attention as a symbol to go screw the past. They looked back up when he spoke,

"We are getting nowhere with this. Miss maid mono, you never told me what you were doing here, STILL WEARING YOUR MAID OUTFIT!"

"I see no need to explain anything to you," Chelsea growled before being grabbed by the collar and brought up to his fingers.

"Right," Sokoto mocked, "beycyause eye wooden oondastend." He brought his elbow a centimeter away from her neck, "And I suppose you refuse to help me understand?"

Chelsea didn't even look his way. She just glared at Cecilia while he dropped her. He grabbed Cecilia's collar next.

"And YOU!"

"What about m-"

"What did I just get through telling you, woman?! About not letting anyone influence your thinking?! Or, something like that?! Or is all this just to fill the void left by your parents?!"

"What...how do you know..."

"Maid woman and nurse woman. I couldn't hear the birth room they were so loud! But I can read you. What's it gonna take to help you onto your feel, eh?!"

"What do you care? All you ever cared about is yourself... you never looked out for anyone..."

"I spit thine own words back at thee."

"What?"

"DID YOU EVER THINK THAT THE PEOPLE IN FRONT OF YOU COULD FILL THAT HOLE, HUH?!"

Cecilia just looked down. Chelsea was brimming with anger. Sokoto had to think of a way to them on the same page so that he can work with them at the same time. Then he thought back to the time Phantom Task got angry because the world wrote them off. They all shared one common goal deep within their rage.

'That's it!' he thought, 'That's how I'm gonna get through to them without using cheese!' He has to get them angry. In other words, insult them to their core. Luckily, knowing everything he just heard, it won't be that hard. As they emptied their insides out, their thin outer shells have nothing left.

He dropped Cecilia like a potato bag and walked away, "That's it. I can't deal with this, Sour Vanilla." Sticks and stones may break one's bones, but harsh words scar their hearts.

Cecilia twitched, "What...did you just call me..."

Sokoto turned back, "You heard me right? Sour Vanilla ASSPOT. Or did you ask those guys at the compound for a Sour Vanilla bathtub?"

That got her blood boiling. All she wanted was a chance to grieve alone, and here he came trampling upon sacred ground. She stood up and stomped her foot, "You mongrel! I should have blown you off the cliff and ground you into dust!"

Chelsea stood back up, "You have no idea what you're talking about."

"I know that this bitch needs to have some sensed knocked in her!" Sokoto shouted.

Chelsea walked up to him, "You are in no position to demand such an unreasonable bargain!"

"And I supposed you're going to stop me? Cherry Surströmming!"

Cripes. He just made a jab at how low ranked England's cuisine was overall.

Chelsea stepped back until she was at Cecilia's side, "That does it."

Cecilia cracked her knuckles, "It seems this loser won't shut up."

Chelsea agreed, "We will have to put you in your proper place." Then she deployed her saber and pointed it at him, "You kill her under the pretense to save her, claiming you misfired? Don't make me laugh."

Cecilia deployed her rifle and crossed it with the saber, "Those moments we shared were fake, all so you could look like the big hero."

Sokoto shrugged, "As fake as your breasteses?"

"EEP!" Autumn, Madoka, and Silvia gasped. He said the beloved.

Cecilia and Chelsea popped a couple veins, "I'm gonna have so much fun ripping your head off."

"Good," Sokoto said as he left the room, "We'll settle this tomorrow, Lake Saint Louis. High noon. Be there, or I'll drag you out there." And he left, with Madoka and Autumn trailing behind.

Cecilia and Chelsea didn't bother to think about what they had done. They just needed outlet for their frustrations, and the renegade has already offered himself up for tribute. So, why not?

"I'll find us taxi," Cecilia said.

"And I'll see about checking you out early," Chelsea responded.

Outside the hospital, Phantom Task walked past the waves and the high fives. They had other things on their mind, most pertinently, the showdown of the blondes. No one knew Silvia captured everything from the shield smack onward, and uploaded it to the internet.

Autumn scratched her head, thinking that the scenario they just witnessed missed a few...dozen steps.

"What's the matter, A?" Sokoto asked

"How did we go from failed suicide attempt to WWE hype?..." Autumn mused.

"Who cares? Let's just be thankful that this wasn't a drawn out drama." Madoka held her hands behind her head.

"Eh...whatever..." Sokoto said, "At least now, they're too angry to be all mopey."

"Ugh, why the-" Autumn yanked his ear, "You're unbelievable, you know that?!"

"Ow, lay off, woman!" Sokoto squirmed.

"Come on," Autumn dragged him into a lingerie shop, "Let me clue you in on a little secret..."

"Wait, where are we going?" Sokoto sensed some lovely auras, "Get me out! MADOKA! HEEEEEE-"

The entrance shut. Madoka and Silvia just stared into the unknown.

"So, you're the Silver Streamline..."

"Uh...yeah..."

"You wanna talk about how you came into being?"

"I found a Starbucks a couple miles thataway..."

"Great."


	5. Back to Basics

_Part 5: Back to Basics_

 **-RITZ-CARLTON MONTREAL; 20:08, 16 HOURS TO SHOWDOWN-**

A special report from CTV Nightly:

"Apparently, there's going to be an all-out brawl tomorrow afternoon! The renegade and Cecilia were talking smack to each other before he finally proposed a battle to settle everything over Lake Saint Louis! Not even 24 hours after he demonstrated his new power! Can she take the heat-"

"WHAT HAVE WE DOOOOOOOOOOOOOONE?!" Cecilia and Chelsea screamed.

That was also the day the internet broke. Millions of websites overloaded as users tried to get a piece of their minds displayed for all to see. A large audience obviously begged for Cecilia to shut the renegade down, but some wanted the renegade to win, which triggered a war of words, which got the attention of the cyberspace watchdogs who tried to calm everyone down, which only escalated the groups into further rage, which eventually blew up a ton of servers.

"What are we gonna do?!" Chelsea panic-paced around the living room, "We let him goad us into another devastating battle yet again! Can we defeat him without causing any damage to the city?! Is there no way to tame that foul beast?! Why did I ever come here?!"

"Gaaaaaah! I can feel his Virus-infested gooey muck rampaging throughout my skin!" Cecilia curled into fetal position in front of the tv, "Near suicide, millions in damages, making me don that hideous hentai shirt, it's all his doing!"

"In the same fashion as that pervert Prinister prissy PICKLED PEEPING PUSS PUPPY PRICK!" Chelsea lost it.

"Forget him!" Cecilia jumped up and down, "It's the renegade we need to worry about!"

"What about him?!" Chelsea screamed, "Why do we need to worry about him?!"

"He was the one who manipulated us into this crazy game! No better than the blue haired FREAK LADY who set this up-And I just answered my own question..."

"What?..."

"She said it herself the night of the attack. She set everything up, luring Phantom Task, uncovering the hidden human trafficking ring, oh! I'll bet she's in league with the UN and her Russian cohorts and tricked them all into coming here!"

"You...you heard her say that?!"

"Yup. And the REASON! Oh my god, the reason! Get this. She's trying to be the "relationship fixer-upper"."

"WHAT?! That's why Île-Sainte Hélène was burnt to a wasteland?!"

"I'll bet she also planned me to get utterly BUTTRAPED IN THE BUTT OF THE LAKE! Oh, I'll get her good this time!"

And from then on, they unloaded on each other. It was the only way they knew could process everything that happened to them. They started with the recent attempt by the renegade to snap her out of her slump and worked their way backwards. They argued about how they should have approached the sex compound (and how he came up with the term Sour Vanilla), why he would come to Canada, where he would go next, why she thought it was a good idea to lure him out when that plan was shot down without takeoff, and worked their way to why she left and what made her come here.

"Even if I believed that you were on orders from Her Majesty," Chelsea said, "that still doesn't explain why you didn't just confront Chifyuy herself. Or why you won't level your head!"

"Did you not see what happened back there?!" Cecilia said, "She started it!"

"Oh, enough of the blame games! Will you just admit that you're not as sturdy as you think you are?!"

"First, very suggestive wordplay."

"Oh, you-" PILLOW FIGHT! "Enough with the playing around!"

RETURN FIRE! "And just where do you think I got that from?!"

"Not my fault! You were always prancing around like you had the entire chip isle on your shoulder!"

And yet again, they kept up the violent pillow artillery with the loud argument. For a half hour.

Finally ending with the windows open to allow the must generated from the extremely sweaty battle and dense moisture from the heavy panting to escape, in a vain attempt to let the cold air in. And yet nothing was resolved.

Chelsea panted, "You know...I could stick around...until after the battle..."

Cecilia didn't say anything. She just stared blankly at the ceiling, looking for a small gap in the white.

"Uh, hello?" Chelsea rolled over, "Earth to Cecilia?"

"Huh?"

"Uh...you be crying?"

"Uh...yeah, a bit..." Cecilia wiped her eyes, "I've just been thinking...the renegade is nothing more than a little tyke in a wolf's body. Is he really the bad guy that everyone else is claiming him to be?"

"Hmm...now that you mention it..." Chelsea thought, "He hasn't killed anyone until the raid. And even then, it was just males."

"Oh, my words of nonsense reach far, don't they..." Cecilia started to trail off until Chelsea stared into her pupils, "...uh...what...what are you staring at me for..."

"Weird how they gave you my eyes, huh?"

Cecilia hadn't realized that she stopped looking in the mirror since she dumped her massive cosmetic collection. She yanked them both to the bathroom.

"Hey, what are you-" Chelsea was jerked in front of a mirror, with Cecilia looming from her neck.

"It's true...they're the same..." she trembled.

"But that blonde hair increases your charm exponentially..." Chelsea muttered. She felt Cecilia's fingernails crawling around her eyelids, and immediately swatted herself out of the bath.

"Uh..." Cecilia winced, "Where..."

"Tea!" Chelsea hopped, "That's right, I forgot to make tea and get cookies..." She scurried out of the room.

Cecilia just looked out the open window. There's not enough lights to blind her from the truth anymore. She had to come face to face with her transgressions and admit to herself that she screwed up. To affirm this, she took another hard look into the mirror. Her eyes were the exact same as Chelsea's, but her hair was messy and unrefined, much like the renegade's. She looked down and found the bracelet she made for Chelsea. She couldn't believe that it stayed with her this whole time. She nodded and swallowed her guts, "I don't think a simple apology is going to work...I'd better stay out of the UK until things settle down..."

That hurt her to say. But before she could get around to tending her heart, her cellphone suddenly blared, "Don't be afraid, Cecilia. I'm the sate-"

"ONE THOUSAND POUNDS UP YOUR ASS!" She deployed her right arm and smashed her phone. Then, she stuffed herself within the massive blanket cave of the bedroom and muttered words no one should ever hear.

 **-STARBUCKS, 20:53-**

Meanwhile, Madoka and Silvia were chilling in a glass-wall cafe on a river pier. Madoka unwound herself on a couch for the first time in her life, with two pillows and a latte, while Silvia became dizzy from the amount of cellphones, bickering, gossiping, and music playing into people's ears.

"Too...much...data...BLEEECCCHHHHH..." Silvia holo-puked.

"You can disable all connections to you, can't you?" Madoka snarled with one eye open.

"But then I won't be able to connect-"

"AAAAAH!" A girl flustered, "Look at this!" And her entire group blushed and nose-bled.

"OK, OK, I'M TURNING IT OFF!" Silvia shut off her connectivity function and slumped over on Madoka's belly, "SIIGGGHHHH...I wonder how many more of these pies we're gonna get before our cheeks get infected..."

"A lot," was Madoka's blunt answer. She didn't open her eyes. She just stared at the glass ceiling, gazing up to the glistening stars, fancying wild fantasies, "...what the hell's wrong with that kid..."

"Hmm?" Silvia peeped up all sleepy-like, "What you mean?"

"I mean... I wanna strangle him until his eyes explode...but at the same time... I wanna smother him..."

"Well," Silvia fizzled to a nearby cellphone, "I have a theory." She then robbed that phone out of 18GB worth of renegade videos and put them on display for Madoka to view. They quickly realized that none of them had any sad renegade on them. Just excited renegade, determined renegade, arrogant renegade, and doingtheotheremotionswrong renegade. All the negative faces happened in the night time, and the following day, it's as if he completely forgot about what worries him the previous night and just went about his goal.

"Oh, no..." Madoka rubbed her eyes, "You're not going there-"

"That's right!" Silvia perked, "He's Dory!"

"GAAAAAAAAAH, YOU WENT THERE!" Madoka chunked Silvia into someone's tablet.

"Holy shit!" The owner of the tablet screamed.

"The hell is that?!" Someone else pointed to the moving graphic now populating the home screen.

Silvia stared blankly before morphing into the Pennywise eating a little baby.

"RUN AWAAAAAAAAYYYYYYY!" The two scrambled out of the cafe and into the water.

Madoka was still reeling from the sudden movie callbacks. She walked out of the cafe and over to a table overlooking the illuminated river waves. She leaned her back against the rail and overlooked the distorted reflection of the moon staining the river. For all she endured after their extremely short break, she managed to sink herself below the emotional abyss, clean up the mess, and rise back up. She left out a barely noticeable smile, and enjoyed herself to the fullest, finally able to accept the inevitable awkward re-enactment of the only movie she watched. The thing that sent her to Cloud 9?

The new rumors of the haunted electric field at Starbucks River.

 **-AUBERGE BISHOP HOTEL, 21:22-**

"Missy!"

"What the hell are you-"

"If you sauté scallops in a nonstick pan, THEY WON'T STICK! THAT'S WHY IT'S CALLED FUCKING NON STII ** _IIIII_** CK!"

"Uh-"

"I DUNNO WHAT NONSTICK MEANS IN TEXAS, SWEETHEART, BUT FUCK ME!...yes, chef..."

A crowd of people groaned at that unneeded images conjured up by those last two words.

That was Sokoto doing "Impression Me!" at the bequest of the locals, after Autumn gave him a serious reprimand for outright trashing a woman's heart. While he's busy making a fool of himself, Autumn was making final preparations for their next adventure. She left him out to dry, finally giving her the peace of mind she so craved.

"Um...hello?" Until a child dared wander into her space.

"The hell do you wa-uh..." It was the same girl who broke through to Madoka.

"Um...sorry for disturbing you..." the girl stuffed a card in the purse and ran back to her family, who joked about how yes hey did bite.

"RAW! RAWWWWWWW-SHIT!"

Autumn wondered if she should run out to apologize, but quickly decided against it and reached for the card in her pu-

"RAWWWWW-KABlepgh..." she unwittingly clocked him in the jaw while grabbing it and reading it.

-To Phantom Task,

Thank you for saving my sister.

Go save the rest of the world!

Love, Bonnie

And a kid crayon rendition of their ISs, with the pilots using them as a hammock.

That finally got to her. She just covered her mouth in an effort to hold back her tears. She never felt this way. Ever since the betrayal, she cornered everything deep within some rusted corner of her heart. She had an easy time unleashing her seething rage until the renegade surfaced and wrecked everything. Squall said he was special. Their only hope. For what? For a second chance at everything else. The part that hurts was that she never told him jacksquat. She kept shut about her problems, so that would mean...

He somehow got Squall to spill the secrets. All because of that goddamn aura mindfuckery.

"I am gonna turn him inside out..." she growled.

Unbeknownst to her, Sokoto fist pumped the brisk frost. He came across the girl's parents during the marathon and asked them a couple promises, in exchange for the safe delivery of their lost daughter. And as already seen, everything worked out wonderfully. He jumped and flipped over several unsuspecting bystanders, then sorted everything out with them. They gave him their sincerities and asked him to do an impression of Cecilia Alcott. During her prime.

(snooty and snobby) "How...dare you! I can't believe that you, a mere commoner, would dare ask such a mindless request from a member of the Royal elite! Have you been trapped in the Stone Ages?! Ugh, fine!"

Which, to be honest, is not at all hard.

 **-MEAT MARKET, STATE OF VICTORIA; 12:36-**

Kanzashi was sampling some of the market's finer local cuisines, trying to get her mind off the absolute disaster her handiwork, and now her sister's, had caused. She just finished down a very sour steak and thought she had tasted the worst. Until-

"HIYA!"

"WAAAAAAGH!" She toppled over and fell into an empty barrel, "Oooo...hello, sister..."

Tatenashi took one whiff of her sister's crotch, "Uh-huh...smells like crime and chocolate."

"Help...me..." Kanzashi felt her skirt crawl to her waist before she was uplifted and walked towards the food court. After ten minutes of the obligatory catchup,

"So, did you do what you had to do?" She asked.

"Yup!" Tatenashi said, "I think I'm starting to like this new job of the asshole counselor."

"Is that really the right term?..." Kanzashi mulled.

"What? Too much?"

"Uhhh..."

"Or is that the opposite of what you expected I would do?"

Extremely pink Kan-chan, "Geez! You shouldn't bring that up in front of me!"

"Why not? You did do it, right?"

She slumped over the table, "Yeah, but..."

"What?" Tatenashi plopped on her seat and put her legs up, "Not at all like how the stories go?"

"Eh? How did-"

Tatenashi wagged her hand, "Let's not worry about the small details."

"O...K..." Kanzashi figured that bit out before going deeper into the renegade's psyche, "But he just seemed so...docile...The way he was clueless until when I taught him how to...to..."

"And you got swept up, and then you realized you had work," Tatenashi smirked.

"Uuuuuu..."

"Quite odd of you to douse yourself off like that, though. I didn't want to go anywhere near that puppy after the crazy power he emitted."

Kanzashi glared at her, "And whose fault was that again?"

Tatenashi didn't know how to answer. She was responsible for putting Cecilia through the Thinning, but Kanzashi was responsible for setting off the solar bomb. They both have their necks tied, so she shrugged, "Eh...don't know, don't care. Howzzat?"

"Is that gonna be our new philosophy from now on?" Kanzashi sighed.

"Seems so," Tatenashi said, "Think about it. We have done the unthinkable. We could've easily ended it there, but we set off a massive chain of events that will quite literally-" passed a flash drive to her "-shove gigantic wooden poles up every single opening in existence."

"Can't deny that," Kanzashi cringed at the metaphor, "But why are we even doing this?"

"It's all in the flash drive," Tatenashi said, "Watch your back." And she got up.

"What?" Kanzashi was surprised, "You're going out already?!"

"No. Just getting some lunch," Tatenashi whipped out a credit card WITH SOMEONE ELSE'S NAME ON IT?! Discreet or dickish?

"Not at all how I wanted it to go..." she muttered. She wanted to really reconnect with her, seeing as how the only method of real communication was through texts. She grew a little tired of it. She sipped her shake and thought back to the moments after the sour graduation party.

 **-IS ACADEMY, 22:36; 2 YEARS 4 MONTHS AGO-**

After the botched Phantom Task revenge plot that was the most misunderstood betrayal of the highest order, Kanzashi only sparingly talked with her friends. She couldn't confide in her sister due to the serious consequences completing the mission had.

Tatenashi was declared a wanted person in Japan and Russia. Her IS recognition was revoked, and the governments tried to hunt her down and confiscate her IS, but she had already anticipated such a declaration and escaped one week prior to the manhunt.

Kanzashi was a bit distraught. She really wanted to hang out with everyone, all smiles. Instead, she and the entire entourage were met by a disappointed Chifuyu, who was briefed on the entire debacle by Maya, just five seconds after the graduation...thing. It was supposed to be a party until they saw Ichika and Houki with Chifuyu and Maya. Everyone started talking about the incident as a failure to protect the city. Which was much better than the actual cause. But what did it matter, because Chifuyu knew better.

"Take this useless brigade around every frickin' corner of the school," Chifuyu commanded Maya in front of the group, "and I want a sincere apology on the back of their crap stunt!" She shoved her into them, "Piss off!" The group walked back into the party grounds, "Every one of them!"

She told herself to stay out of it, but when she's heard nothing but excuses for four weeks straight, then screw everything. After stretching the apologies two hours too long, they went back to Chifuyu.

"Are you done yet?" She demanded.

They solemnly nodded.

"Let me tell you...IS Representatives..." she walked up to them, punching holes in the pavement with every step, "that was the first useful thing you did for me and for Ichika," she said, "and it's also the last."

The group just kept their eyes down and walked past their now former instructor while she kept bellowing.

"Get out! All of you!" Once the group went past her, she turned around, "And hang your heads in shame! Because you absolutely suck! Piss off!" She chunked her locket at them, "Embarrassing!" She threw her arms up in disbelief, "And right after you got promoted, too! You suddenly don't care about each other!"

It was humiliating. They worked hard to get back their lost connection. Everyone seemed to simmer down as the months passed, even though the relationship statuses have barely changed. Kanzashi decided to step down from all high government positions relating to the IS, partly because two was more than enough, but mainly because she didn't want to strain her emotional grievances even further. She hated the way everyone blamed her sister for what happened, but what could she do?

Some time later, she was able to link up an encrypted connection with her and try to convince her to clear her name.

"Well, all that cringey passive aggressive hatred has to go somewhere, right?" was what she said.

 **-PRESENT TIME-**

"No way I could do that..." Kanzashi mumbled, much to the delight of-

"Lunch time!" Tatenashi shouted. Kanzashi jolted her head up in fear and shock, thwacking her head against Tatenashi's. They both reeled before Tatenashi found her way to her seat.

"What's in that thing..." Kanzashi asked, "Looks like a questionable mega burger..."

"Oh, we're gonna split it," Tatenashi said, "You know how women are with diets, right?"

"But isn't this the other way around?"

"I seen you naked a few hours ago."

"EEP!"

"Trust me, this is good for you. The right amount of fat in the right places, you know?"

"That...stretching it..."

"Not as big as the pizza dough. Seriously, there's a Michelin-starred chef hellbent on making a gourmet pizza the size of the food court."

Kanzashi enjoyed the simple conversation with her sister. It was a long time since it was the two of them relaxing in the middle of the day. And Tatenashi knew it and rode it out. They kept the conversation as far away from the renegade as possible.

Until lunch was finished. Tatenashi let out a giant burp and said, "Whew! That was a feast, if I do say so myself!" She got up and stretched.

"Wait, you're leaving already?!" Kanzashi jolted.

"Have to," Tatenashi said, "Places to go, people to see, things to see."

"But..."

"Relax, will you?" Tatenashi patted Kanzashi's shoulder, "I'll be around the bend soon. Just not right now."

"But it's been years! How will we meet up again?"

"Now that..." Tatenashi walked away, "...it's coming soo. And that's all I know."

A few seconds later, she was gone.

"Man," Kanzashi rubbed her head, "I should've asked why..."

The only thing she held onto was that flash drive. She wished she had more, maybe a gift, or even a walk. She felt so isolated without her sister that she had to remodel her exterior for the sake of avoiding total meltdown. The way she acted in front of her workers, in front of the renegade...it was all to hold out for the day when she could talk to a familiar face.

Until then, she can't cry. Because Tatenashi didn't. She gripped the flash drive and went back to her normal self.

 **-NATIONAL MALL, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA; 23:11-**

 _(Resolute stars aligned. The sea quivers gently o'er the night)_

A little girl was singing to herself in the middle of the grass, under the dimly lit night sky. She glanced at the reflection of the pool, which bore the distorted mirrage of the giant monument struggling to point the way to the guardian on the marble throne.

 _(Swiftly fleeting love. Mighty conscience, guide us toward our light)_

She slowly walked towards the guardian, eyes unfazed from the statue's watchful gaze.

 _(Let it be the hope. Let it be the battle cry that wins our fight. Flock of birds, heed the winds of change. Bring together the memories of the ice.)_

She made it to the steps of the statue, and stared at its face.

 _(Come home now, you who paints the sky. Journey's end, you shall stalk the grieving splice.)_

She turned around and gazed in the direction that the statue looked in, then sat in the same pose as the statue.

 _(Chains of fate, you wield. Pleas of peace and love, betrayed by vice.)_

She has chosen not to return home, due to the growing unrest outside the imaginary protective shield generated by the monuments.

 _(Doo, doodoodooooo, dooodoodoododooooooo...)_

She stretched her arms out and began to drift to sleep.

 _And prepares to join the battle in two months. She is but a mere innocent soul in the worst timing of her life: the renegade will enter the United States during Election season. This is no surprise._

 _What is a surprise is the resolve Cecilia will choose when she enters the fight come midday tomorrow. She has yet to find a proper answer to the question poised by her Canadian experiences. Is she willing to accept the past and present as a fact?_

 _The answer she chooses may make all the difference, not just for the battle, but for the rest of the renegade campaign. Pray she makes the right decision on the next episode of Infinite Stratos...Virus._


End file.
